


Remembering Normal

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-01 21:11:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: Hal Jordan is a totally normal alpha, and definitely NOT gay. At all. Like, even a little. Except there was this once. . .Nota Bene:This is an omegaverse/ABO fic. However, I have felt free to use and expand on what conventions of the genre I like, and to change some others.  As always, read at your own risk, and for (I hope) your own pleasure.First chapter of twelve.





	1. Chapter 1

If he just could have left his damn shirt on, his life would have been a hell of a lot easier. 

But he hadn’t, of course. Because it had been hot as fucking hell in the docking bay, and twenty degrees hotter than that inside the Javelin, and they had been working on it for two hours already, and what had seemed like it would be a quick fix had turned into an all-day pain in his ass. “Hand me the. . . the hook thingie,” he said, squinting up at the underside of the control panel. The sweat was starting to trickle into his eyes.

“Hook thingie?” Bruce said, and Hal ground his teeth. 

“You know what I mean. Sue me if I don’t know its name. Goddammit, I cannot get this wire to—hang on,” he said, and then Bruce was crouching down there with him, securing the wire out of his way while he used the soldering iron on the other pair. “Okay, I think that’s got it. That part, anyway.”

“Mm,” Bruce grunted, and he rose and returned to the laptop he had propped on the Javelin’s console. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Let me test run that loop first.” Hal could hear the rapid tap of keys.

“We could just sub-route it,” Hal said. “Like I suggested maybe forty-seven hours ago. But God forbid you do anything the easy way.”

Bruce made an indistinguishable noise, and Hal rubbed the sweat out of his eyes again. If they could just get the climatics up and running, the rest of this might not be so bad. But he was locked in a metal tube with next to no circulating air, along with Batman. The League would find their bodies sometime tomorrow, matching Allen wrenches stuck in each other’s necks. “Okay,” Hal sighed. “I’m gonna go back to the original issue. If we can connect the gamma and zeta circuits, we might be able to bypass the whole shitfest of the epsilon circuit.”

“That would be a good idea,” Bruce said, “as long as no one minded being incinerated to a crisp in the nearest star’s radiation the next time we take the Javelin out, because you were too lazy to run a full diagnostic. If I’ve only got one shield between me and a sudden fiery death, I’d rather it not be your work ethic, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re a giant prick, you know that, right?”

Another tool was pressed into his hand. “Hook thingie,” Bruce said. 

They worked in silence for a while. How Bruce was not drenched in sweat, Hal had no idea. At least he wasn’t in the suit; they had both been smart enough to show up for this workday in T shirt and jeans. Bruce still looked as crisply laundered as he had this morning, though, while Hal was a sweaty swamp demon. The close air of the Javelin was thick with alpha-scent, acrid enough to make Hal’s throat close. Mainly it was his own smell, of course, because he had been the one under the control boards all day – at his own insistence, because he didn’t want anybody else fucking around with his ship. 

“ _Your_ ship,” Bruce had said.

“That’s what I said. I sit in the pilot’s chair, that makes her my ship.”

“You’d best remember I can pilot this ship every bit as well as you can, so take your arrogant ass and—”

“Oh, oh, wait just a goddamned minute, you fucking what? I’m a fucking test pilot, but _I’m_ the one that’s arrogant? You gonna go head to head with me, DIY flyboy, that what you’re gonna do? Because I’m totally sure whatever eHow piloting video you’ve watched is a match for the combined United States Air Force and—” a metal tube overhead wrenched loose and hosed them down with scalding steam. 

“Fuck!” Hal yelled. “My ship!” 

And he had dived under the panels to shut it off at the source while Bruce had leaped up to wrestle the pipe back in place and tighten the valve while the steam no doubt roasted the fuck out of his hands, and they had spent the next hour just getting her to the state where they could actually get into her gear and start upgrading. So maybe they had let a little of the routine maintenance slide over the last few months. 

Hal sat up now, and of course miscalculated. His head hit the steel rim panel of the control board. “Ow,” he said weakly. 

“Idiot.”

Hal slid out and tossed his wrench aside. He yanked off his sweat-soaked shirt and balled it up. “We are gonna get some goddamned air moving in this thing or I am gonna fucking die,” he said. 

Bruce was looking at him oddly. Not angry, really; not like he was about to call whatever Hal had just said stupid, either. Just. . . oddly. There was a tight muscle jumping in the side of Bruce’s jaw. “Get back to work,” he said, but he didn’t look at Hal when he said it. 

“Yeah yeah,” Hal sighed. “You’re the one out here tapping keys, I’m the one rubbing his ass raw down there.”

“You want to switch?”

“No, I do not want to switch.”

“Is that because you don’t trust me with the wiring, or because you don’t actually understand the computing aspect of what I’m doing here?”

Hal reached for his sweat-soaked shirt and threw it at him. The next thing he knew his back was slamming into a metal bulkhead, and Bruce had him pinned, his face inches from Hal’s. “What the _fuck_ ,” Hal managed, and then his brain ran out of things to say, because he had thought Bruce was pissed about the shirt and had just over-reacted, but he didn’t look pissed. He was just staying there, keeping Hal pressed against the wall of the Javelin, and Hal could have easily pushed him aside. Could have. Why wasn’t he?

Bruce was. . . not doing anything. Not digging his fingers in harder, not doing anything but watching Hal. And he was. . . inhaling. Inhaling deeply. Nostrils flaring as he pulled the air into his lungs, as though the alpha-reek in this close metal tube wasn’t nauseating him. Like he couldn’t get enough of it. Like he. . . oh.

Oh.

Hal had been around alpha queers before, of course. He knew what to look out for; every alpha did. The dangerous, uncontained aggression, the cold calculating eyes. And he may have only paid partial attention in his high-school health class, but he could still see the video they had played: a dark alley, an unsuspecting alpha walking along, whistling, oblivious to the menacing growl of the slavering alpha queer lurking behind the trash bins, watching, waiting for his chance to strike. Out of the shadows the growling, hulking figure hurls itself at the innocent alpha, throws him against the brick wall, roars and begins tearing at the man’s clothes. The scene freezes, and the words flash on the screen: _Don’t Let This Happen To You_. 

Funny how real life wasn’t like health class videos. 

Hal opened his mouth to say _listen, we’re cool and all, but this is not really my thing, so get the hell off me._ Any second now, that was what he was going to say. 

Any second. 

Bruce hadn’t broken eye contact with him. Unbidden, he heard his buddy Rory’s nasal voice, in that long-ago health class: _A friend of mine said they stare into your eyes, and that’s how they get you. He says they hypnotize you._ His teacher’s patient sigh. _No, Mr. Hartnell, that’s just a myth. Stereotypes are harmful because they can blind you to the real danger posed by these people._

In health class, they separated you by caste, so you could ask those kinds of questions without embarrassment. Belatedly it occurred to Hal he should have asked a few more questions. Were there videos he had maybe slept through? 

He knew he could break Bruce’s pin, and Bruce knew he could too. It was a pin designed to be broken. Of course, part of what held a person against a wall was body weight; it wasn’t just a matter of hands. And Bruce’s body weight was pressed against his. Hal’s nostril curled at the sharp acridness of their combined scents. But Bruce’s body was pressed against his. Bruce’s slightly larger, thickly muscled, flawless body. And Hal’s cock had clearly not watched those health class videos, because his cock was responding to the warmth and weight and pressure, to the body pressed up against it. 

Bruce’s mouth was bending to his. Slowly. Giving him time, just like he’d given him time to break the pin. He would tell Bruce to get off him now. Now was just the time to do it. “I’m not gay,” he said, but it came out as more of a whisper of sound.

“That’s not the same as telling me to stop,” Bruce pointed out. 

It wasn’t, was it? Man had a point. 

“Just. . .point of information,” Hal murmured.

“Mm,” Bruce said. And then there were lips on his. Just lips. No tongue. That was smart, wasn’t it. The tongue was where the taste resided, the sharp distinctive alpha taste. You shoved that into another alpha’s mouth, an alpha taste other than their own, and they were likely to gag on you at best. This was just Bruce’s lips, and the slow grind of Bruce’s hips. Fuck, he was getting hard. Really, really hard. 

Bruce’s lips were traveling around his neck, and they stopped to lick at him. Hal could feel the flick of wet, and then the heavy wet drag of a tongue. Bruce was licking up his sweat. Bruce was getting off on it. And that was it, right there: that was the thing that was getting his cock swollen. The thought of Bruce getting off on him, of Bruce getting off at all. It was his scent Bruce was licking up, _his_ taste. His taste Bruce wanted.

Hal grabbed the back of Bruce’s head and dragged their mouths back together, and this time he was the one that shoved his tongue in Bruce’s mouth. Bruce growled. Growled and gripped Hal’s head too, hard, pushed his tongue against Hal’s, and Bruce’s tongue was sliding against his own, Bruce’s mouth was hungrily eating his. Hal fought the gag sensation. Tried to breathe deep and master it. 

There was a hand, pushing at the outline of his cock. Hal spread his legs a little to give him room. It was a hand that knew what it was doing. There was a skitter of panic in Hal’s chest, and then Bruce’s mouth had lifted off, and those extraordinary eyes were back on his, watching. Flicking back and forth like he was assessing something, weighing. 

The hand had unzipped him. That large warm hand was plunging inside his jeans now, had wrapped itself around his cock. Bruce was pulling his own cock out now too, and the alpha scent was so strong, the musk of it so overwhelming, that Hal did gag. Bruce just laughed softly, and pushed their cocks together, and Hal groaned at the heat of it. That was a thing he knew intellectually – the greater heat of an alpha’s cock during arousal, compared to the heat of an omega’s or beta’s. But knowing a thing intellectually was not the same as feeling that super-heated silk pressed up against you, all that hardness and heat together. 

Bruce was grinding on him. There was a thick arm locked around his neck, and hard fingers squeezing his ass, and the heat pushing into him was almost more than he could take. It was too much sensation at once. “I’m—I’m gonna come,” he managed, and “I know you are,” Bruce growled in his ear. 

Sometimes those high school health class videos would get him hard. Because they would show you things, and it was all in the guise of teaching you how to be responsible young alphas and aware of your sexuality – “young men and women of accountability,” that was the phrase they had used. But the videos would show things like sinuous young omegas pressing up against a confused alpha at a frat party, and there had been multiple choice options on the screen about what was the “accountable” choice, but every single alpha in the room had stopped paying attention long ago and was fantasizing about fucking that omega. Sometimes Hal would rush to the bathroom afterward to rub one out, and he knew the same thing was happening in the stalls all around him. He could heard the soft intent breathing, smell that sharp nauseating smell. 

Once, his junior year, he had heard noises in the next stall that told him it was more than just one person. He had pressed his eye to the crack of the hinge and seen Rory with his cock inside Melanie Traynor. Melanie was alpha too. They had been growling softly, panting open-mouthed. Rory had been rubbing hard at her clit, her leg hitched up on the toilet seat and Rory fucking against her backside. If you rubbed it just right, an alpha female would let you stick it in her cunt, and Rory must be rubbing it good, because Hal could see the pulse of Rory’s cock as he came. He watched the drip of it as Melanie came too, her slick coating Rory’s fingers. He could still see the agonized silent expression on Rory’s face as he came inside her. Hal had never asked him about it. Rory made jokes about queers all the time. 

“Fuck,” Hal panted. “Oh fuck.” He didn’t bother to hold back his growl when he came. The mouth on his neck was sucking so hard, the pain of it felt almost good. His knees buckled. He didn’t even know if Bruce had come too. He leaned against the wall and tried to get air. 

“Interesting,” whispered the voice in his ear. And then he felt it – the sweet throb of the beginning of his knot. 

“Fuck,” he said again. This had never happened to him. This never happened to anyone. 

“Shhh,” Bruce said. “I’ve got you.” At the base of his cock, that low sweet thrum had set in that told him his knot could not be held off. And then—oh and then—

“Fuck!” he cried out yet again, because apparently that was it, that was now the sum total of his vocabulary. Bruce’s fingers had found his knot, Bruce’s fingers were massaging his knot.

“What’s the matter Jordan,” said the warm amused voice in his ear. “Never had your knot rubbed?”

Hal dug fingers into that broad back. Whatever Bruce was doing he couldn’t even describe. Hal was afraid his growl had become more of a whimper, as those deft impossible fingers worked him, rubbed gently, slowly, in maddening circles through the long minutes of Hal’s knot, as Hal’s mind exploded with sensation, as his body came unstrung. 

He had never knotted anywhere other than inside someone—hadn’t really known that was possible, outside of some porno, and those knots were probably all fake anyway. To knot after a handjob, or after a grind like this one? Come on. So he had never actually felt fingers on his knot before, the indescribable articulated pressure of _fingers_ on that most sensitive part of his body, and he knew he cried out, he knew he shuddered at it, he knew he was digging into Bruce’s back and pleading.

“Let go,” Bruce murmured. “It’s all right.” Hal’s head arched back, his mouth gasped for air, and like it was slowly being pulled from the inside of him, the slick clear fluid that had swollen his knot was dripping, slowly, slowly, with delicious agony, out the tip of his cock. 

“God—fuck—I can’t—oh _Christ_ —” 

It was like a second orgasm, but stronger and deeper, and he had never known anything like it. Some alphas bragged about coming when their knot drained, but Hal had never really believed them. Mostly it was just a languid pleasant sensation. But there was nothing languid and pleasant about Bruce’s fingers slowly milking him of slick onto the floor of the Javelin, where it spattered down beside his cum. 

“Fuck,” he panted, as one last shudder wrung his body. Bruce was propping him against the wall. Bruce was raising his cum- and slick-smeared hand to his mouth and licking it, eyes closed. It was the most revolting thing Hal had ever seen. Bruce’s cock was already tucked back in his jeans. Hal wasn’t even sure if he had come or not. The Javelin was filled only with the over-loud rasp of Hal’s breath, as he struggled to pull himself together. 

“I think maybe that’s enough work for today,” Bruce said. He bent to where Hal’s shirt was puddled on the floor, and wiped the rest of the mess on his hand onto the shirt. He tossed the shirt at Hal, who clutched it. 

“Asshole,” Hal managed, and Bruce gave that same soft laugh as before. He flipped the hatch of the Javelin and stepped out into the cargo bay. Hal stood there, dazed and undone, for long minutes, before he remembered that Bruce had not bothered to shut the hatch door behind him, so anyone who wandered in could see him there, splayed against the wall, shirtless, his cock hanging out and his pants around his ankles. 

That was probably not the look Bruce was going for when he emphasized the importance of professional demeanor on the Watchtower.


	2. Chapter 2

He could have come in early the next day to finish up the work they had started. He knew for a fact Bruce couldn’t be there in the morning, because he had said he had a meeting to attend in Gotham. So if Hal had wanted to avoid him, he could have zeta’ed up to the Watchtower early in the day and gotten the rest of it done by himself. There was an easy solution.

But he told himself that was not really the responsible solution. 

Because they were going to have to work together, and if things were going to be weird between them, if it could affect how they worked together in the field, then nothing was worth that. So in between showering and shaving and putting on an extra layer of scent guard (had that been his mistake yesterday?) Hal weighed his words to Bruce.

 _Bruce,_ he would say. _Let’s clear the air a little bit._ No, bad metaphor. _Bruce. We need to talk._ No, too emotional. That made it sound like he was assuming they had some sort of relationship. Which they did, of course, but of the friend variety. Of the. . . well, maybe _friend_ was stretching it a bit. They were colleagues. Co-workers. Allies. Yes, there was the word. Allies. Comrades. Brothers in arms. 

_Bruce, I just wanted to make sure we’re okay,_ he could say. _I just want you to know that I don’t judge._

“Congratulations,” he said to his reflection. “You sound like a rocket-powered douchenozzle. Nice work.”

_Bruce. Whatever happened yesterday, I don’t want it to mess up the way we work together. And as far as I’m concerned, it can stay between us._

 There. That was it. Just the right note. Firm friendliness, along with an assurance that he wouldn’t tell Bruce’s secret to anyone else. He tapped his razor against the side of the sink and stood lost in thought for a minute. Bruce’s secret. Suppose that it wasn’t, though? Suppose other people in the League knew? Bruce hadn’t exactly acted. . . ashamed. What if Clark knew? Did Clark know? He couldn’t quite make it fit together, the Bruce that he knew who was always in control, always radiating calm command, and a Bruce who was some out-of-control over-sexed alpha queer. _An excess of hormones,_ that long-ago textbook had said. _A psychological disorder with grave consequences for socialization and a normal life._ Well. The books weren’t wrong there, but no one in the League was exactly normal, were they?

When he got to the Watchtower, it occurred to him for the first time that Bruce might not be there. In fact, it was more than probable he wouldn’t be, that he would just stay clear of Hal for a little bit. That was a relief. Wasn’t it? Shouldn’t it be?

He had so convinced himself he wouldn’t see Bruce that when he opened the Javelin’s hatch and found him already at the diagnostic console, he was surprised. Surprised and. . . not disappointed. Not disappointed at all. 

“Bruce,” he said, beginning with just the right note of business-like friendliness that would set the tone for everything else. 

“Come look at this,” Bruce said with a frown. He was studying his laptop screen, glancing back and forth between the screen and the console. “See it?”

“What am I. . . oh. Well, fuck.”

“Well put.”

“Okay,” Hal said. “Okay, we can fix this. No no, it’s good, we can do this. You see up here in lambda-nine circuit? What if we bypassed at that join?”

Bruce’s frown deepened, and he studied the screen. “The idea is solid,” he said. “But the practical mechanics of it, a bit less so. That circuit is behind the lower left hydraulics panel. I’ll have to re-configure almost all the externals if you’re going to get in there safely. Damn. That’s hours of work.” He rubbed at his forehead, closing his eyes, and sighed. He looked exhausted, and like he had a million things on his mind other than the Javelin, or Hal, or whatever had happened between them yesterday. He seemed no different in any respect, and Hal was suddenly embarrassed about the things he had been planning on saying.

“You’re tired,” Hal said. “We can do this tomorrow if you’d rather. Or hey, you want me to take a stab at the re-configuration? I could do it. It may take me a little longer than it would you, but it’ll get done.”

“No I do not want you to ‘take a stab’ at anything,” Bruce said irritably, lifting the laptop out of his reach. “This is delicate tech, not a leaky faucet in your low-rent apartment.”

“Fine, whatever. Forgive me for trying to be nice.”

“Nice would be you doing your job so we can both get out of here and do our actual jobs.”

“No, _nice_ would be you having the decency to at least be polite to someone whose dick you were grabbing yesterday.”

“Oh for God’s sake. Trust you to be unable to tell the difference between a meaningful event and some recreational fucking. I don’t have time for this.”

“You don’t—what do you mean, you don’t have _time_ for this? What, you think I am under some delusion that you and I are going to—oh for fuck’s sake, I am legitimately going to puke myself here, you arrogant self-obsessed little—”

“Isn’t that what you came back for today?”

“What I _what_?”

Somehow Bruce was standing closer than Hal had thought. When had that happened? He should say something. Do something. This wasn’t going at all like he had planned. This was so far off the plan. “It’s going to be a long afternoon,” Bruce said, and there was something low and menacing in his voice that made Hal’s hackles rise. “Maybe there are one or two things we should get out of the way first.”

Hal was frozen. Here was the perfect place to say the things he had been practicing earlier. This was exactly where he needed to say it. “Bruce,” he began, but it didn’t come out right. It sounded. . . like something else. 

“Shhh,” Bruce said, like he was gentling a horse, and it made Hal just angry enough that he knocked Bruce’s hand away, only Bruce gave a slow grin at that, and pushed Hal hard into the wall, and no fuck no, that was not happening again. Hal pushed back, harder, and now he was the one who had Bruce against the opposite wall. 

“All right,” Bruce said softly. “Now what are you going to do with me?”

“Yeah, I don’t. . . actually know,” Hal said. 

“No you don’t,” Bruce said. “But I do.” And he grabbed Hal’s wrist, and pulled. Pulled him after him, all the way to the back of the Javelin. To the bedroom in the back, and the sleeping platform. He pushed Hal down on the bed, and climbed on top of him. Hal was trying not to, but he was shivering. The shivering was in all his limbs, and wouldn’t quite stop.

Bruce froze. Carefully, he lifted the leg that had been straddling Hal, so he was free. He lay beside him. “You know I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and his voice was different, somehow. Hal nodded. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” Hal said. Bruce just lay there and looked at him, and Hal looked back. The shivering was slowing down, a bit. Bruce was pulling off his clothes—tossing his shirt into the corner, standing to take off his pants, getting naked. Completely naked. There was a scar on Bruce’s chest he didn’t remember being there the last time he had seen Bruce in the showers, which come to think of it had been quite some time ago. The scar was deep and fresh, and the design of it large and unmistakable. “Jesus Christ,” Hal whispered, studying it. 

“Shhh,” Bruce said again.

“Stop shushing me. Will you stop fucking shushing me? That is really fucking annoying.”

Bruce’s laugh was warm and low. His hands were at Hal’s clothes now. “You talk too much,” he said. His hands were lifting up Hal’s shirt, pulling it over his head. Those remarkable hands were at his jeans now. They were lying on a bed, and everything felt different from yesterday. More deliberate, somehow. Bruce’s eyes watching him were still the same though. 

Bruce’s hand was cupping him through his shorts. Hal felt like he should do something here, but it felt kind of good to lie back and let someone else do the driving. More than good. Bruce had straddled him again, and was slowly grinding back and forth, just a steady gentle rhythm. Hal still had on his underwear, and somehow that made it feel better, the drag of warm cloth between his cock and Bruce’s. 

It was funny, the things you noticed when you were up close and personal with another alpha like this. He had slept with plenty of males, but all of them had been omegas, maybe one or two betas. What was rubbing up against him now was one hundred percent a giant alpha cock, that was for damn sure. The heavy balls of an alpha. The muscled back and forearms – not that other males didn’t have those too, but there was a rock-solid firmness to alpha muscle that was just. . . different. Not as pliable. Hal reached a hand down and let himself feel those balls, feel the weight of them in his hand. Bruce was still, and watched Hal’s hand. He still couldn’t figure out if Bruce had come yesterday. He had been kind of a shit yesterday, but he hadn’t really known what was going on. He could pay better attention today.  
Bruce’s hand was doing the same thing to him, feeling him up. His cock was full hard now. Bruce’s was leaking a little bit. Only alpha cocks did that. Tentatively Hal reached a finger up and swiped at a little of the leakage. Bruce was watching him. For a second he contemplated tasting it, but it would make him gag, he knew that much, and Bruce would laugh again. 

Bruce grabbed both their cocks in his hand and started working them. Hal let his head fall back, let the sensations take him. “Fuck, how are you so good at this,” he moaned.

“Practice.”

The grind of Bruce’s body into his was slower than yesterday, and Bruce didn’t stop watching him. Bruce’s hands were pinning his shoulders. “So tell me,” Bruce was saying. “Exactly how many layers of scent guard did you put on this morning?”

“I—I didn’t—”

“What were you afraid of, Jordan?”

“This.”

“Mm.” Bruce bent down to his ear. “Smart man,” he whispered. His mouth began doing the thing it had done yesterday, licking him right below his ear. He was trying to get at the scent. That tongue traveled to the hollow of his throat, to just underneath his jaw. Bruce’s cock was pressing into him, and Hal could feel the heat off it. Bruce’s lips grazed his. Bruce’s fingers were gripping him hard enough to leave bruises. It really should not be turning him on. 

“Come on,” Hal growled, and he gripped Bruce’s ass, pulling him in tighter. 

“Getting brave, are we. I bet you think you’re being wild, don’t you. You’ll impress some sweet little omega with the story of how you fucked an alpha once. You’ll make up something that sounds hot, but you won’t tell the truth. You’ll never say that you came so hard you knotted, will you.”

“Shut up,” Hal panted.

“You have a plan to make me?”

Hal rolled them so he was on top. He grabbed Bruce’s arms and stretched them out, pinned him by the wrists. Something darkened in Bruce’s eyes, something hungry. Hal bit at his mouth, his lips. Pushed his tongue inside. Bruce kissed him back, hard. _Recreational fucking_. He tried not to think about how tame this must be to Bruce, tried not to think about the things Bruce probably did in bed all the time. The people he did them with. He would make sure Bruce wasn’t thinking about any of them. 

He used one hand to push his own shorts off, and he saw the way Bruce’s eyes skated down him. Bruce’s hand was on his ass, digging in. Bruce rolled them over again, and now he was grinding for real. “Yesterday was for you,” Bruce said in his ear. “And this is for me. So hold still.”

“No,” Hal gasped.

“I said hold _still_.” A hand in his hair yanked his neck back. Bruce was fucking him, fucking into his cock. Thrusting up against him with a small grunting noise. Hal got his legs twined in Bruce’s and met his thrusts, rubbed up against him, against that incredible heat. 

“Don’t come,” Bruce said.

“I’m—I’m not—I—fuck—”

“I said wait.” Bruce was riding him hard. Hal wanted to sob with it—he wanted to fuck something so bad, his cock ached to fuck, but the rubbing was getting him closer and closer. His mouth wanted to taste something, too, but there was only alpha musk in the air, only that acrid taste on Bruce’s skin. He didn’t care, he had to lick something or die. He licked at Bruce’s neck, fought the gag reflex, bit hard to fight it down.

“Do _not_ fucking bite me,” Bruce growled. “You want to fuck an alpha, you learn the first rule: no biting.”

“Now who talks too much.”

Bruce was pulling his whole body closer, had an arm around his waist, his face buried in Hal’s neck. He was grinding hard, and Hal heard the low rumbling groan that told him Bruce was coming. He lost it then, and his own cock jerked and spilled and spasmed. All the oxygen had been sucked out of the Javelin, and Hal couldn’t find air. There was no way this should be making him come so hard. Bruce’s orgasm just kept going on forever. Hal could feel the steady spreading heat as Bruce’s cock pumped juice onto him. Those heavy balls pressed into his. “Fuck,” Bruce quietly gasped. Hal could feel another shudder seize Bruce, another spurt of hot and wet dribble between them. Hal tried to press closer, harder.

He felt the sweet tug of his knot starting. He groaned at it. There were Bruce’s fingers, like yesterday. And. . . and something else. He could feel. . . he could feel Bruce’s knot too. “Oh fuck,” he panted. “Fuck.”

Bruce’s fingers massaging his knot yesterday had been like nothing he had felt before, but nothing, nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of another knot pressed against his. It was like a super-heated core pushing into his knot. Bruce’s deft fingers were manipulating them both together, pressing them together. Bruce had his hand wrapped around both their knots, squeezing with a pressure more intense than Hal had ever felt, even when his knot was swelling an omega’s tight passage, and the feel of the knot up against his own—

He shut his eyes and gave himself over to it, to the waves of sensation. It was like the first time he had done coke, like the first time he had flown. And what he could not figure out, what didn’t fit with anything else, was how gentle it was. Bruce had an arm around his neck, supporting him, and Bruce’s hand working them was. . . tender, almost. The fierce licking and sucking of before had become a steady inhale against his neck. It was like the normal rhythm of knotting – the rocket ride to orgasm, the slow languid pleasure of knotting – but different, somehow. Like the volume had been turned up on everything. The fucking was sharper, and this—this was definitely a whole other order of thing. Almost too much sensation.

He climaxed when his knot spilled, just like yesterday. Bruce just kept up that rhythmic squeeze, and maybe that was it, maybe it was the rhythm of it. When he knotted, it was always inside someone, and the squeeze, the delicious pressure of it, was steady, never fluctuating like this. This was a whole new vocabulary of things to feel, and when he shuddered his second orgasm, he knew he made a high-pitched noise in his throat, somewhere between a gasp and a keen, and he knew he shook. And like yesterday it was like slow waves rolling over him, not the sharp explosion of his first orgasm—this one wrung him, deboned him, obliterated him. 

“What the hell did you do to me,” he managed, lying sprawled and spineless on the bed. Bruce just smirked at him. 

“You just met your knot for the first time,” he said. “It tends to have that effect. Come on, get up. We’ve got work to do.”

Hal raised a bleary head and realized the man wasn’t joking. “Shit,” he sighed, and struggled up. “Fine. It’s your fault if I electrocute myself because my eyes are still crossed.”

He didn’t need to worry about things being weird, because apparently Bruce didn’t have the equipment that would make something like this weird, for a normal person. In Bruce’s world, it was evidently completely the way things were supposed to go, that you would be having mind-blowing sex one minute, and working together on complicated engineering problems the next, like the sex had never even happened. It wasn’t that Hal wanted to have some big emotional deal here, but on the other hand it was a little insulting that Bruce seemed to have no problem acting like it had _never_ happened. He was pretty sure he wasn’t acting, either.

“Right,” he sighed. “All right. Lambda-nine circuit, here I come.”


	3. Chapter 3

So: investigation was clearly the way to go here. 

He had never watched any alpha-queer porn, because why would he? Mostly his porn consumption was pretty standard: alphas fucking an omega in heat (somehow they were always in heat, in porno plots, probably spritzed down in between takes to make them look sweating and disheveled), or threesomes with a willing beta helping things along. But now he had an investigatory goal in mind, and he spent his weekend in the shadier corners of pornhub, looking at the amateur stuff, which was where you could see alpha-queers massaging each other’s knots. Before, that had looked about as exciting as watching paint dry, or a championship golf tournament. Now, it looked a hell of a lot more interesting. 

But in addition to being hot (and yeah, it got him hard, and yeah, he came into his fist a couple of times watching it) it was also puzzling. Because knotting just didn’t happen every time you had sex, obviously – it really only happened in penetration. He was pretty sure there was some chemical explanation for that, something in some textbook he had read once. He had always thought, when he had glimpsed porn like that, or heard guys talking about knotting outside of sex, that it was fake. Not the knot itself, but how they got it. Probably they had been fucking, and then yanked their dicks out right when the knot started – unbelievably painful for a partner, but sure, it could be done. 

Only, that wasn’t what had happened to him. Was it?

Five minutes of rubbing up against Bruce, and he had knotted. Twice. What the hell was wrong with him?

He rubbed his cock until it ached. He watched the videos, watched the guys putting a vibrator on their knot. Watched them practically scream their heads off with how good it felt, watched them writhe and groan, watched them shake as their knot drained, until their bodies were covered with the slick that just kept pumping out. _Oh God, oh fuck, oh Jesus, fuuuuuck,_ they moaned and thrashed, and it no longer looked fake to Hal, he knew exactly how they felt, and he pumped cum out over his own hand watching them.

* * *

It happened once more before he got called off-world on a mission for a few weeks. 

They ended up fixing most of the Javelin’s wiring problems on the second day, and there was no real reason for them to work on it after the weekend. But Hal showed up on the Monday anyway. He got there early, and waited. He didn’t let himself think, _what the hell am I doing_. He didn’t let himself reflect on it at all. If he was wrong, Bruce wouldn’t show up. He was wrong a lot, about quite a few things, so it wouldn’t have surprised him if Bruce didn’t show. He had no expectations either way. 

But Bruce did show, after a while. Hal heard the whoosh of the Javelin’s hatch open and close. He heard Bruce’s step. Bruce was looking at him, and saying nothing. Hal swallowed, licked his lips.

“I. . . thought that maybe we could go over some of the—of the—I remember that we hadn’t fully tested the, ah. . .” His words died away, because Bruce was still just looking at him, and there was a knowing smirk on his face—just a small quirk of his mouth. He advanced on Hal, and he found himself against the wall again, though Bruce hadn’t even touched him yet. He swallowed again. 

“I’ve been doing some research,” he said. 

“Have you now.”

“Show me how to do—what you did.”

“Why, so you can rub your own knot whenever you feel like it?”

“No. So I can rub yours.”

Bruce paused at that, and whatever shadowed his eyes Hal couldn’t make out. He was the one advancing on Bruce now, pressing until Bruce was backed into the wall, and that was more like it. The smirk was back. “What’s the matter, Jordan? Afraid I’m going to forget you’re an alpha? Or afraid you will?”

“Fuck you.”

Bruce’s laugh was low and menacing. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t have the first idea how.”

Hal leaned in and did what Bruce had done—gripped the back of Bruce’s hair, tilted his neck, ran his tongue in a thick swipe up that razor-sharp jawline. “Wouldn’t I,” he whispered. “You think I wouldn’t know how to get you to take my knot. You think I wouldn’t know how to loosen you up with my tongue, how to warm up enough lube so I could slide it in you while I was rubbing your cock, how to slip a cock-ring on you and keep you just on the edge of coming while I come inside you, just hold you there while you want it so bad, and then you’ve got a knot to ride, just when you can take it easiest, just when it feels the best, right before you come, and I hold off your orgasm until my knot is almost, almost done, and when you come with a knot inside you I can make you feel so good you feel like you’re gonna black out with it. And then I can rub your knot while I slide out of you, nice and easy. You think I wouldn’t know how to do that.”

“Well now,” Bruce said, and was Hal imagining it, or was there a little hoarseness to his voice there hadn’t been before? “That’s going to get you seriously laid.”

Hal grinned, and Bruce’s answering smile was the closest to an actual smile he’d seen yet. “That’s the idea,” Hal said.

“So, lots of porn, I take it?”

“Oh hell yeah.”

But Hal was mainly talk, and they both knew it. He didn’t try to fuck Bruce that time, and Bruce didn’t try to fuck him—except there was maybe a suggestion of it, because his fingers brushed against Hal’s hole, maybe a little more deliberately than Hal had ever experienced, but he moved quickly on, and the moment might not have happened. Hal was more proactive though—he was done lying there like a swooning omega and letting Bruce do what he would. He gave as good as he got, licked and suckled and got rough, just like Bruce did. Pinned Bruce down and ground into him, and Bruce didn’t growl or throw him off, either—just grinned that wicked grin and said “that’s it, come on,” like it was what he had been waiting for. 

And this time Hal was the one to get his hand wrapped around their knots, afterward. Their knots took longer to drain this time, but Hal worked them like Bruce had done, trying to back-burner his own blinding pleasure to give Bruce a little of it. He didn’t kid himself he was anything like as deft as Bruce, and it probably felt clumsy and barely adequate to Bruce—he knew for a fact he squeezed too hard a couple of times, because he caught Bruce’s wince, and he said “sorry, sorry,” and quickly re-adjusted. But when he finally drained Bruce’s knot for him, he heard the long drawn-out exhale of Bruce’s breath, and saw the faint flutter of his eyelids, and knew he had brought him that pleasure, and it felt so good, felt better than anything he’d ever felt in bed or out of it. 

“So you’ve gotta show me how you do it,” Hal said afterward, knot-drunk and bleary-eyed.

“Do what?” Bruce was already slipping his shirt back on.

“The trick you do to make us knot like that.”

“Trick?” 

“Yeah, you know. God knows you’ve probably got a little of everything in that lab of yours, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve whipped up a little something. You can tell me. Is it a chemical you’re using, something you’re wearing?”

Bruce had his shirt on, but he was just sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to Hal. He didn’t answer. He was probably thinking about something else already, and ignoring Hal the way he always did. But then he turned around and looked at Hal, and something on his face looked strange, looked off. He looked like he might be about to say something, but then he turned back around. 

“I mean, no offense,” Hal said. “It’s not like I mind. Two thumbs up, ten out of ten would bang again. Just don’t lose that secret formula, is all I’m saying.” 

Bruce was reaching for his pants, pulling them up and sliding on his shoes. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “This is the Javelin, not your personal sex dungeon. As long as we’re here we should get some more work done.” 

“Right,” Hal sighed. “How could I forget. Of course forty-five minutes of pleasure has to be followed up with six hours of agony. Have you considered that maybe it’s not the spaceship that’s got the faulty wiring?”

Bruce snorted, and tossed his pants at his head. “Get up,” he said, and strode out the Javelin’s narrow bedroom door without looking back.

* * *

After that, he was summoned to an off-world mission for a couple of weeks, and the last thing he had time to think about was his dick, and whatever weird-ass thing had happened with Bruce. Of course later, looking back on it, that in itself seemed weird to him. Shouldn’t the whole thing have seemed weirder? More upsetting, somehow? But he had just sort of shrugged and accepted it as one more thing about his body and himself he just hadn’t known—like discovering a previously unknown wart behind his left knee, or something. 

Maybe to a normal person the whole thing would have seemed more like a freak show than it did to him; maybe he had not been that normal to begin with. On the other hand, it could also be that he spent enough time off-world that he tended to lose human perspective on things like appropriate mating behaviors. Of all the alien species Hal encountered, and all the myriad life forms, only humans were canid, and only humans organized themselves in sexual castes. Once, he had tried to explain it all to Kilowog, and there had been flow charts involved, and eventually he had just given up. 

_Humans,_ Sinestro had said once, with that thinly veiled contempt. _All that obsessive drive to organize. Understandable if the universe is too much for one’s mind to grasp._

_Go back to where you just called my entire planet stupid?_

So maybe that was what had messed him up – all that time off-world. That was probably it. Looking back on it, he was sure of it. Would a normal, non-space-traveling person have reacted the way he did—which was, basically, to shrug and say _okay, let’s go at it then?_ Probably they would not. So that was just one more way the Corps had managed to screw with his life. Now he couldn’t even manage to remember what normal was like.


	4. Chapter 4

“So what you’re saying is, increasing instability in the sector is going to affect Earth sooner or later,” Batman said.

“No, what I’m saying is, we’re fucked. It’s just a matter of time before the Fraalians decide how fucked.” Hal rubbed at his forehead. “Look,” he said. “Yes, there’s uncontained aggression in their sector, and yes, it is headed our way sooner or later. But I can tell you this, it’s not happening in the next twelve hours, so maybe we could all just sleep on this? Sleep being the operative word here?”

Not that anyone cared, but he had actually been on patrol for nineteen hours straight, and then had come right to the Watchtower for this meeting, and all he wanted was to tip over into a bed somewhere, and there was no reason he couldn’t have briefed them all after he’d logged a little sleep, but trust Batman to disagree. But of course Bruce was ignoring him, and instead flipping through the screen’s display of some schematics he had obtained on his ring, going on about strengthening some of the Watchtower’s defenses, making adjustments in other places. 

Hal stretched his legs out and leaned over to Ollie. “So,” he whispered. “I miss anything actually important while I was gone?”

“Cubs won the pennant,” Ollie whispered back. 

“What? Are you fucking shitting me? You couldn’t have gotten a message to me somehow?” He hadn’t whispered, of course, and Batman was glaring at him. “Well excuse me, Dark and Spooky, but I happen to have missed some vitally important news here. Does no one at this table care anything about current events?”

“Oh yeah, and the Supreme Court passed gay marriage,” Barry said. “So there’s that too.”

“Jesus, I was only gone two weeks, what happened?”

“Check out some of this, it’s pretty amazing. Did you really not see any of this?” Barry was reaching for the controls of another screen and flipping them to the cache of news recordings. “It was unbelievable. People dancing in the streets all night, it was like a giant nationwide party.” 

The images flickered to life on the largest screen, and Hal watched in dumbfounded amazement: footage of literally thousands of people flooding the Washington mall, screaming themselves hoarse, even more people lining the streets and waving rainbow flags and shouting like their team had just won the Superbowl. Barry had the sound muted, but he didn’t need to hear the sound to get the idea. 

“Wow,” Hal said. He watched as two obvious and half-naked omegas kissed, shoving their tongues down each other’s throats. There were people hanging from streetlights, most of them attached to other people – groping, kissing, making out, bashing each other on the head with massive inflatable dildos. Another omega couple, naked and covered only in knotted ropes, sharing a sign that read _Suck this knot!_

Hal started laughing. “Okay, maybe not the most persuasive argument they could have come up with, but points for inventiveness.”

“And check out Dinah – she’s famous!” Barry switched to another set of images, and sure enough, there was Dinah, being interviewed on some morning talk show. Hal turned to her with a grin. 

“Check you out,” he said, and she smiled, rolled her eyes. 

“It was not that big of a deal – they just needed a clinical psychologist at the last minute, to talk about same-caste relationships.”

“It’s a big deal,” Ollie said to Hal.

“They needed you to explain to middle America why people were hitting each other with giant dongs in the streets of Peoria?”

“No, thank you very much, that wasn’t why. They just needed someone with clinical experience to talk about why the gay marriage laws apply only to betas and omegas, and not alphas.” 

“Wait, what?” Hal said. “Only betas and omegas can get married?”

“Well, yes. And there are lots of voices in the queer community angry about that, and they needed someone to try to explain the legal reasoning, and its basis in psychological finding.”

“Its basis in. . . Dinah, come on. You don’t mean that you have a problem with same-caste marriage.” 

“Of course not, if we’re talking about betas and omegas. But the legal restriction on alpha queer marriage is not just born of prejudice; it does come from statistical findings about aggression in the alpha queer community.”

“You don’t. . . come on, you don’t mean that.” Hal found himself glancing around the table. Barry was still absorbed in re-watching the footage, and Clark was looking at a print-out of some of the Fraalian schematics Hal had brought back. He handed a couple of pages to Diana, who nodded thoughtfully. Bruce was sitting there silently, cowl on, lenses up, impassive. 

“Hal, I understand you want to think of this as being about inclusion, but public safety is a genuine problem here. Alpha queers are just more aggressive individuals, less concerned with the well-being of others as a general rule. There is some real psychology behind this decision.” 

_Less concerned with the well-being of others._ Hal thought of Bruce’s sleepless nights patrolling Gotham, of his lifetime of service to the League. Public safety? He felt a small lurch of nausea. “That’s not. . . true,” was all he found to say, aware how lame it sounded. 

Dinah shrugged. “I’m just offering you the scientific reasoning. I’m telling you that in the clinical work I’ve done, alpha queer relationships are invariably unhealthy. They always end with violence, unfortunately. It’s just a consequence of a different neurology. The hormonal balance is amiss in a relationship like that, and while you might say the same thing about a same-caste relationship of two betas or two omegas, the truth is that in an alpha-and-alpha relationship, someone ends up getting hurt – all too often, a third party who isn’t even in the relationship. These are some very destructive and dangerous dynamics we’re talking about here.” 

At the other end of the table, Bruce was calmly sipping his coffee and swiping on his pad through some more of the Fraalian intel. The inside of Hal’s throat felt tight, too dry. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, trying to sound more forceful. He kept expecting someone else at the table to say something, anything. Did they all agree with Dinah? Was this what everyone thought?

Was this what he had thought?

“Dinah, come on, that’s not. . . the alpha queers I’ve known are nothing like what you’re describing. They’re just normal people, you know? You make all of them sound like sex-crazed monsters.”

“Obviously I don’t mean that. What I’m saying of alpha queers as a group may not be true of one or two of them individually. But we are talking about people who have enormous difficulty controlling their sexual impulses, and frequently other people do get hurt. Children, all too often.”

“You’re—what? Now you’re saying that alpha queers are child molesters?” The nausea in his stomach had become a roil. “You can’t possibly mean that. Look, that is fucked up, all right?”

She arched a brow at him. “Talk to me after you’ve sat where I sit, and listened to the stories I listen to. In my practice, I see a lot of things you don’t know about.”

“Look,” Hal said, and now he was angry. “Maybe I know some things you don’t know about, ever think about that? I’ve slept with another alpha before—a male, too. And it wasn’t anything like what you’re describing, _he_ wasn’t anything like what you’re describing. It was maybe the most amazing sex of my life. He was considerate, and respectful, and. . . and gentle, and the farthest thing possible from the kind of thing you’re talking about, and you just don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, okay?”

“Hal, one or two sexual encounters is not the same as an extended relationship, in which—”

“Save it,” he said angrily, and kicked his chair out as he rose. “I don’t want to hear any more of this shit. Because that’s what it is, some fucked-up shit. Don’t talk to me for a while.” And he stalked out, ignoring the astonished glares of the rest of the room. He had to get out of there, had to get clear of them, or he was going to be ill. 

He made it back to his quarters, and the worst thing about being on the Watchtower was that there was no way to slam the doors. He settled for smashing his hand on the doorpad, which took no notice of his tantrum and made its usual tinny beeping noise as the door slid shut. He willed a punching bag construct just so he could hit something, but that felt unsatisfying. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ. To sit there and listen to that, and to hear, louder than Dinah’s voice, the silence of everyone else at the table. He couldn’t unhear it, so he just kept beating the bag with his fists, and ratcheting up its resistance until he could start to feel the ache in his hand. It didn’t make him feel better but it helped keep down the deafening noise of that silence a little longer, so he kept at it until he found his rhythm and could stop thinking, stop hearing.

He startled at the beep of his door, and quickly vanished the punching bag, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “Yeah,” he said, and the door slid open to Bruce. 

Surprise, surprise. Also, his hand ached like a motherfucker, and while he was at it he really should have constructed a pair of gloves, but too late on that one. Bruce had stepped inside and was just glaring at him. “Right,” Hal sighed. “I know what you’re going to say. I really do not need to hear it, so just save yourself the trouble, all right? Self-control blah blah blah, show some restraint blah blah blah, Lantern you fucked up again, what a surprise, game set match. We done here?”

Bruce pushed back his cowl. He was indeed frowning. He didn’t say anything, though—just kept looking at Hal. It was an unsettling gaze. Did Batman have an un-unsettling gaze?

“You think I’m angry with you,” he said.

“Like you’re not?”

Bruce was quiet. He glanced around Hal’s quarters. Hal found himself wishing he had maybe tidied up a bit more. “Have you been living here?” Bruce said.

“Yeah, more or less. I’m kind of between places back on earth. I’m away so much these days it just seemed stupid to pay rent, and I kept not being there to make my rent payments anyway, so yeah. I put most of my stuff in storage, which I thought would be a giant pain in the ass, but as it turns out I don’t actually use most of my stuff anyway. I had a whole apartment full of shit I never even used. Turns out I owned a colander. Who the fuck knew that?”

Bruce nodded, a bit absently. He looked. . . odd. Uncomfortable, even. And then it occurred to Hal that for the first time, he was seeing Bruce when he didn’t know what to say. That was quite the thing to see. He was standing there listening to a stupid story about Hal’s kitchenware, like he gave a shit. “Do you. . . want to sit down?” Hal said.

“I thought I might owe you an explanation,” Bruce said abruptly.

“An explanation? For what?”

“I thought you might wonder why I said nothing, earlier. In the meeting.”

“Oh,” Hal said.

“I thought you might be angry about that.”

Hal absorbed that, for a second. Bruce had thought Hal was angry with him. With him. “Bruce,” he said. “I don’t—”

“There are reasons. I could give you all the reasons, if you’d like. I have a life to live, and things to accomplish, and I can’t do those things if people see me in a certain way that makes that difficult. I don’t have time to expend on useless conversations that change nobody’s mind. That sort of conversation is pointless.”

“Bruce. Jesus Christ. The last thing you owe me is an explanation.”

Bruce’s glance was keen. “But you wondered why I was silent.”

“I. . . I figured you had your reasons.”

“It was more than that.” Bruce was quiet again, for a minute, and Hal wondered if he should offer again for him to sit down. But he looked like a man who was arranging his thoughts. “If you want the truth,” he said finally, “I didn’t hear it.”

“Didn’t hear it?”

“Not like you did. Not in the way that you did. I suppose the truth is, I’m so accustomed to hearing that sort of thing that I just. . . don’t, any more. It doesn’t really register. It’s as though. . .” He trailed off again, and Hal was quiet too. Strange to think this was a man whose body he had known so intimately. This quiet conversation felt somehow more intimate than anything else they had done. 

“It’s as though they’re talking about somebody else, whenever I hear something like the nonsense Dinah was spouting. It has so little basis in reality that it doesn’t even trouble me. I don’t remember it ever troubling me, really. Your reaction today, to hearing that sort of thing expressed so nakedly—it startled me. Made me. . .rethink my own reaction, if that makes sense. Possibly I should have said something, but for whatever reason. . . I didn’t. I had forgotten, I think, that any other reaction was possible. You surprised me, but then you have a habit of doing that.” 

Hal could think of nothing to say to that. He wanted to reach for Bruce’s hand, but didn’t dare. He wondered what would happen if he did. “You can’t fight every battle,” Hal said. “And I just got pissed, is all. They were talking about you, and I couldn’t stand it.”

Bruce made an odd shrugging motion. “They were talking about some idea of me, not anything real. You’ll have to learn to ignore it.”

It was Hal’s turn to be silent, and he dropped his eyes. He knew what Bruce meant, what he was implying. He was saying they were alike. That Hal was one of them. Alpha queer. “I don’t think that’s something I will ever learn to ignore,” Hal said. “Or that I would want to. No matter who I’m sleeping with, alpha or not. I’ll never not hear it. Maybe I didn’t hear it before.”

“Before, they weren’t talking about you,” Bruce said shrewdly, and Hal felt the sting of that. He had told himself it was Bruce he was thinking of, Bruce he was defending, but the truth was not quite so simple, was it?

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

Bruce’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Most amazing sex of your life, hm?”

“Well, I mostly said that for dramatic effect. I wouldn’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh that’s not where it was going,” Bruce said, and Hal smirked back at him. 

“I have been off-world for a while,” he said. “Does seem like a little welcome home might be in order.”

Bruce looked around. “What, in actual living quarters? I thought maybe you needed proximity to flight controls to get it up.”

“Just proximity to you,” Hal said, and that got him the reward he had been hoping for, because Bruce seized his face in his hands and started in on his mouth, and Hal let himself collapse into him, let himself just give over to it. And the taste—

He reared back in surprise. “You taste. . .good,” he murmured, and then he dived back in, shoving his tongue into Bruce’s mouth as far as it could go, he was so hungry for it. It was still sharp, still with that bitter edge he remembered, but different somehow too, different in a way that went straight to his cock. He gripped Bruce’s face in his hands too, and kissed him so hard, licked up every bit of the taste he could, every bit of _Bruce_ he could get his tongue around and on and inside of. 

“Kiss me some more,” he whispered, and Bruce did.


	5. Chapter 5

So no, they didn’t stop. That had been the plan, that had very much been the plan. One and done. Or, well, more accurately, seven or eight times and done, but who was counting? But this—coming back from an extended off-world mission, and then falling back in bed. . . that seemed like something else. Deliberate, almost. Intentional.

Because before, he had maybe told himself it was an accident? _I’m sorry, your honor, I tripped and fell onto this man’s knot. Ah, yes, seven times, that’s correct. A tragic accident._

Because before, they hadn’t been fucking. And now they definitely were.

“Bruce,” he had panted once, in the middle of a make-out session that had him about four seconds from coming in his pants. “Can we fuck? Is that a thing we can do?”

“What is it you think we’ve been doing?”

“I mean. . . you know what I mean.”

Bruce’s eyes narrowed as he considered him. “So you’ve watched enough porn to think you know what you’re doing.”

“I do know what I’m doing,” he protested. “Come on, it can’t be rocket science.”

“No. But it does require some care. I’m driving.”

“What? How come? I told you I know what I’m doing, all right? Come on, just. . . please. I really. . . I really want this.” And yeah, he was kind of a shit, because there was a small ugly part of him that had figured out Bruce was not going to tell him no when he lowered his voice in just that way. “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”

And Bruce had sighed. “That’s going to be the last thing I hear before I die. All right, but try to follow directions, you think you can manage?”

Hal grinned. “Since when is that a problem?”

And the thing was, it had gone really well, right up until the point it really, really hadn’t. He had taken such care with Bruce; he had stretched him out on the bed and licked him open, had oiled every inch of his body until he knew Bruce was humping the mattress underneath there. And then Hal had climbed up him and showered kisses on his shoulder, his arms. “Don’t you get started without me,” he had whispered. 

He had slipped that cockring on Bruce so carefully. Had bought one especially for this. He had gone to the extremely scary sex shop in the extremely scary part of town, but nothing had really prepared him for the aisles of merchandise, and the labels overhead, like it was a demented grocery store: _alpha, omega, beta._ All sorts of different toys for every conceivable sexual need, and some Hal had never even thought of before. He was dizzied at the sheer volume of things to choose from, and more than a bit confused. He had had the forethought to douse himself in scent guard beforehand, though, and he wore his loosest, baggiest clothing; he ought to pass for a mild-mannered beta, and nobody would think twice about him buying toys in the alpha section. He could just be another beta buying things for his nice, safe, boring, totally legit relationship with an alpha.

“You know it comes in all different sizes,” said the girl at the counter, who looked way too young to be working here and whose array of piercings were frankly terrifying to look at. She was chewing gum and glancing him up and down. “This for another alpha?”

“Oh,” he said. “Ah. . . I’m not. . .”

“Because for an alpha you want the larger sizing, is why I mention it. Ain’t you ever used one on yourself before?”

“Oh, I don’t—I’m not an alpha. This is—this one is fine.” And he had fumbled for his wallet, unable somehow to meet her eyes, which were only amused. She was an omega who was wearing not an ounce of scent guard, and he ducked his head to hide the flare of his nostrils at the rich strong scent of her. 

“Here,” she said, and she slid a pill bottle at him. “You wanna pick up a coupla these. Make it last longer, you know? Always good to have some of these babies on hand. And the trick with the cockring is, you put it on yourself and it’ll squeeze you right at the base, yanno? That way it’s easier to pull out before you knot. Like this, see?” And she very helpfully snapped and unsnapped the cockring several times, holding it aloft so he could see. There were one or two people behind him in line, and his face was burning.

“Yes, fine, thank you, that’s good, that’s great, all right, have a nice day,” he had babbled, shoving money at her and grabbing everything she put in the brown paper bag and practically sprinting to his car. He sat in his car and shut his eyes, trying to erase the humiliation of the last twenty minutes of his life. 

“You’re an embarrassment,” he said aloud to his rearview mirror. Since when had Bruce Wayne become his interior voice? 

But he had been so, so prepared, was his point. He was going to make Bruce shudder in ecstasy. Before the night was over, Bruce would be screaming his name. And also—yes, this had been part of it as well—he was a little tired of Bruce being the one who knew how to do everything in bed, of Bruce always taking the lead. So it had felt great, seeing the pleasure he was bringing Bruce. There were of course things he had not quite been prepared for, like the taste. He had licked and sucked and kissed his way down Bruce’s body, enjoying the feel of that gorgeous body going more and more boneless underneath his tongue, and then he had swirled his tongue lower and lower, and wow, there really was no wetness there. Like, at all. When he was with an omega, that was the part he liked best – that sweet omega musk, that rich dripping liquid pouring from their hole, bathing his tongue. 

But that didn’t mean it felt bad to Bruce, evidently. He had even begun making these soft exhalations, had even spread his legs wider for Hal. Hal had alternated between his hole and his cock, giving him every bit of wetness in his mouth. The alpha taste was so strong between his legs that Hal fought the gag more than once, but if Bruce noticed he didn’t say anything. It was so much stronger and sharper than the taste in his mouth, was the thing.

He had never used so much lube in his life, and even then it hadn’t felt like enough. It hadn’t seemed possible that his cock could go in there, but he had watched Bruce carefully and taken his cue from that.

“Don’t knot in me,” Bruce had whispered. “That’s the only rule here.”

“I thought no biting was the only rule. For a guy with his legs spread you got a lot of rules. Come on, trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

And at the last minute he had had the debate with himself about the cockring, because that thing was not nearly as comfortable as maybe he had been hoping. He kept adjusting it, fiddling with it. Was it really supposed to be that tight? Plus, wouldn’t that just chafe against the tenderest part of Bruce’s skin while he was fucking him? It wasn’t like he needed some toy to give him self-control anyway. He could hold off his knot without it. So he had tucked the ring under the pillow beside him.

Inch by careful inch, he had slid into him, but Jesus Christ he was so tight, and he was glad after all that he had taken a couple of those pills the girl at the counter had sold him, since otherwise he would almost definitely have come just from that, because holy fuck, holy fuck he had not quite been prepared for what that would feel like, for the unbelievably tight grip of an alpha’s hole. Jesus Christ. 

“You good?” he whispered to Bruce, when he was snug against him, and Bruce had said “Yeah,” with something in his voice Hal hadn’t heard there before. 

But then it went wrong. 

He had only wanted to bring Bruce pleasure, only wanted to make him feel good. Only wanted to feel like an _alpha_ again, and was that so wrong? And he knew his body’s rhythm, of course he knew it. He knew Bruce was close, so close, and he could feel his own knot building, knew it was going to happen. He knew he should pull out, but he wanted to hold on, wanted to ride Bruce’s orgasm with him, to feel it from the inside—feel an alpha orgasm from the inside, which he knew for a fact was different, wanted to feel those unbelievably powerful muscles clamp down on him and make that delicious squeeze even tighter, he could hold on for a few more seconds, he knew he could. Bruce came with a quiet gasp, reaching back with his arm to press Hal closer, and that was it, that was what did it right there. He groaned and came so hard it choked off his breath. “Fuck,” he panted, but it would have been okay, even then it would have been okay, but the pleasure was so intense it knocked the wind out of him, and he still had time to slip out in those seconds, but it was like everything in his body was broken, everything frozen, whited out. 

“Hal,” was the word that reached him, and “Shit,” he said, and tried to pull out. 

“Hal,” said Bruce’s voice again, taut with something, and holy shit, holy shit. 

“I—I can’t,” he panted. “Shit, I didn’t mean to—I can’t—Bruce I can’t get it—”

“Hal please,” Bruce said, and it had happened, holy shit it had happened, his knot was swelling so fast and so full. His stupid body had just come its stupid brains out, and now he was fucking knotting, he was _knotting_ inside an alpha. 

He fought down the panic. “Bruce, what do I do,” he said. “Tell me what to do.”

Bruce’s breathing became much slower, more measured. “Be quiet,” he murmured. He was relaxing every muscle in his body. He was. . . holy fuck, he was trying to manage the pain. He was stilling himself to handle the pain. Hal wanted to sob, he felt the choke of an actual sob in his throat. His stupid fucking body was ripping Bruce apart from the inside, and there was fucking nothing he could do about it.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so goddamn sorry, fucking tell me what to do here.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Bruce said through gritted teeth, and through the long agonizing minutes of his knot he lay there, body pressed against Bruce’s while his knot only swelled larger. He caught the hitch of Bruce’s breath as he tried not to gasp in pain, and if he had had a knife to hand he would have stabbed himself in the fucking chest. 

“Did you,” Bruce panted, “take anything.”

“Yes,” Hal said, and he didn’t want the knife in his chest, he wanted it in his throat, wanted all the blood in him to spill out into this bed. “I took some. . . some pills the girl at the store said would make it last longer—I thought that would give me more time before I knotted, I thought—”

“She meant – you fucking idiot – that it would prolong your knot,” Bruce said, but he didn’t seem to have breath for more, and Hal could see his eyes fluttering shut again. He went away behind his eyes. Hal had no idea how long it was before his knot drained into Bruce; he had stopped feeling anything but the churning in his gut. He felt the easing in Bruce’s body before he felt it in his own, and at the first sign he might be able to pull out, he tried shifting.

“No,” Bruce hissed, and Hal instantly stilled. He held himself motionless, waiting. He would not try to speak to Bruce again. He would never try to speak to Bruce again. What he had done was unspeakable, was unforgivable. He wouldn’t have to look at his cock when he pulled it out to know it would be smeared in blood, Bruce’s blood, the blood where Hal had ripped him open without mercy, without thought, because of his own arrogance, his own want.

Bruce shifted, infinitesimally, and Hal could feel himself slipping out. Because he was a coward, he did not look. He knew he could not bear to see the blood he knew was there. As soon as he felt the moment of blessed freedom he leaped up and ran to the bathroom, frantically warming a cloth, desperate for anything that might relieve Bruce’s pain. He raced back to the bedroom to find Bruce already sitting up, though his head was down and he was gripping the bed. Hal knelt in front of him. Everything he wanted to say died in his throat. He bowed his head and bent it to Bruce’s knee. “Don’t be so melodramatic,” Bruce said sourly. 

“I am so fucking sorry,” Hal whispered, for what felt like the fiftieth time. 

“It was bad sex, not the end of the world. I’m going to take a shower. You want one, or do you maybe want to self-flagellate a little bit more?”

So Hal joined him in the shower, and used his hands to soap Bruce’s body as gently as he could, to say with his fingers and hands all the things he wanted Bruce to hear. He bowed his head to Bruce’s chest, to the scar on it. Kissed his skin. Kissed him up and down – his broad shoulders, the narrowness of his waist, the flare of his thighs. All the way down his body, and then all the way back up, and when he was done he had the courage to meet Bruce’s eyes.

“I didn’t want you to drive because I wanted to feel like an alpha,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t listen.”

“Mystery solved.”

“You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

Bruce gave a soft laugh. He was leaning against the tiled wall of the shower. “Listen, Jordan,” he said. “Live your life the way you want to. But sooner or later you’re going to graduate high school and figure out that the hormone in your veins has zero to do with who you are.”

“Yeah? Well sooner or later you’re going to figure out that other people are not actually idiots, and talking to them like they are is maybe why you have two friends, one of whom works for you.”

“I see we’ve moved on from the remorse portion of the evening.”

Hal leaned in and pressed a kiss at the base of Bruce’s throat, where there would be a slight hollow if he weren’t an alpha. It was where his scent pooled, or would if the water weren’t running over his skin, washing them both clean of whatever lay beneath. Hal brushed his thumb against the spot, and bent to kiss it again. Mentioning Bruce’s close friends – or lack thereof – had him thinking. He had seen proof that Clark had no idea about Bruce.

“Does Alfred know?” he asked.

“Does Alfred know what?”

“About. . . you,” Hal said. “That you’re. . .”

“Gay?”

“Yeah. I mean, none of my business, I guess. I was just wondering. No one in the League knows. I know you have to hide, but family is different.”

Bruce was still leaning against the wall, just letting the water run over him. “I don’t have to hide,” he said. “If anyone ever asked, I would tell them. But people don’t ask. People make assumptions. And like I said before, I have a job to do. That job is easier if I let people assume whatever they want.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Hal said. He leaned against the wall of the shower next to Bruce. “Lonely, though.”

“I’m not really a people person.”

Hal laughed. They stayed there for a minute, both leaning against the wall and letting the scalding hot water scour them. In the water, no one had any scent. You could be anything you wanted to, in the water. But it was funny how even in fairy tales, mermaids always had caste. Like, why? They were fucking fish people. 

“Hey Bruce,” he said. “Can I suck you?”

Bruce cracked an eye. “Be my guest.”

And that was how he actually sucked Bruce for the first time, start to finish. Not that they hadn’t had their mouths on each other before, but it had always been part of something else. Never this quiet intentional thing. He wondered if Bruce had been steering them away from it on purpose.

It took Bruce a while to get hard, but Hal took his time. The tiles were digging into his knees by the time Bruce gave a soft groan and tipped his head back. Hal just kept at his work, never speeding up, never getting rough. Just letting Bruce have his mouth, for whatever pleasure he might want. 

After another long while Bruce tugged at his hair. “Going to—come,” he murmured, and Hal shook his head, closed his eyes. Bruce wanted him to pull off. Bruce didn’t think he could handle a mouthful of alpha cum, his whole mouth flooded with the strong sharp taste. But Hal didn’t care. Didn’t care if it tasted like a funnel of bleach poured down his throat; he wanted Bruce to have this, wanted to give Bruce at least a little pleasure, a little tenderness. 

“No,” Bruce panted above him, and tugged at his hair again. Hal shook his head harder, knocked Bruce’s hand away, sucked with all his force and let Bruce’s cock slide all the way down his throat and relaxed his breathing.

“Fuck,” Bruce groaned, loudly, and then it was happening. Hal felt the contraction of those heavy balls in his fingers, the flood down his throat that choked off air. He just went boneless for it, let it happen. Bruce’s fingers were back in his hair, but they weren’t tugging him away this time; they were digging in, pressing him closer. Bruce’s hips bucked into his mouth. Bruce was fucking his mouth. “Fuck,” Bruce groaned again, but softer this time, a whisper against the patter of the water.

Hal swallowed, and when he was sure Bruce was done, let his cock slip out. Gave it one last kiss before he stood slowly, from his aching knees. One of his knees gave an audible pop. “Old man,” Bruce said blearily, collapsed back against the shower wall.

“Younger than you.”

“Just. . . four years,” he murmured, and look at that, Bruce was still a little fuzzy around the edges. He hadn’t actually seen that happen before. 

“You okay?” Hal whispered.

“Mmm hmm,” Bruce said. 

“It’s just, you didn’t knot. Was that all right?”

Bruce opened his eyes. They were shockingly blue. There were water droplets on his lashes. Hal’s stomach did something weird, or maybe it was in his chest. It was just, you could be around Bruce all day long, but then something would happen to remind you how beautiful he was. Bruce reached for his hand and pulled it to his chest, re-settled against the wall with his eyes closed and Hal’s hand in his. So that was a yes, then. 

They eventually got dried off and back in bed, and that was the first night they slept together, just sleeping in the same bed. Well, almost – they did wake back up a little closer to dawn, and then Bruce did climb on top of him, and it was like their first time in the Javelin, a grind that had Hal gasping and clutching at Bruce while he spilled cum between them, while Bruce’s cock pulsed into his and got him slick with cum. And afterwards they both knotted, and Bruce did it like before, his fingers massaging both their knots together. This time though, Hal got their mouths sealed together so they were kissing while Bruce slowly drained them – or not so much kissing as panting into each other’s mouths, resting there, breathing. He wasn’t sure if he came again, or if his orgasm this time was just really long and slow. But it felt so good, and they kissed through it.

Bruce collapsed on him afterwards, and they fell back asleep like that. Or Bruce did; Hal was awake for a while. He could have shifted Bruce off, but didn’t. He lay there, too tired to really move, and stared at the ceiling for a while. 

When Bruce had come in his mouth, it hadn’t tasted as bad as he had thought it would. Hadn’t tasted bad at all, actually. It had actually tasted. . . good. Not that the sharpness hadn’t been there. He could taste that, but there was something else there, too, some layer of sweetness or something. He could still taste a little of it on his lips. The same thing he had tasted in Bruce’s mouth when they were kissing. 

Tentatively he reached up and brushed at his lip with his finger, as if maybe he could feel the taste there.


	6. Chapter 6

Hal was back off-world for another short tour, but it wasn’t quite like before, when he had left. Before, he hadn’t really thought about Bruce at all, or if he had, it had been fleeting. This assignment was shorter, but he thought about Bruce constantly. It was worse when he tried not to think about him. He found himself going over every conversation they’d had, every elliptical thing Bruce had ever said. It was like something was messing with his brain.

“Fucking stop it,” he muttered to himself at night, when his brain would not get out of its Bruce-rut. But of course, night was when his brain decided to run the Bruce Wayne Porno Channel in Imax 3D for his viewing pleasure. He was rubbing himself raw thinking about Bruce. 

So when they were briefly in communicator range of Earth, he decided to do something about it. He called Bruce, and was congratulating himself on the stroke of genius idea he had had when he heard the gruff “Yes,” on the other end. Hal grinned. 

“What, you don’t have caller ID on this thing?”

“Oh, I do.”

“Stop masking your feelings, you’re embarrassing yourself. So I’ve been thinking, what are you doing next week?”

“It’s the middle of the night and I’m trying to get some work done, what the hell are you talking about?”

Hal leaned against the ship’s interior hull and laughed. In the background, his shipmates were starting another raucous round of some obscure drinking game. Green Lanterns worked hard and played harder, and even Bruce’s irritation couldn’t dampen his spirits tonight. “Okay, crankyass, keep your skivvies on. There’s a formal banquet I’m supposed to go to on Oa in a couple of days, and everyone’s got a date. Except I don’t. I never do, for things like this. But I was thinking, maybe you could come be my date, yeah? I could come get you. Come on, what do you say, it’d be fun. You know you wanna.”

“You’re asking me on a date.”

“Yep. This is me, asking you on a date. Don’t leave me hanging, man.”

“What sort of formal banquet?”

“What do you mean, what sort? Like, you need more information before you’ll agree to go? Come on, it’ll be great. You can get all dressed up, there’ll be drinks – okay, what passes for drinks on Oa – along with some more or less digestible food and very disturbing dancing, what could be better?”

“Extensive dental reconstruction, maybe?”

“Ah, don’t be like that. I’m not saying Oans know how to party. I’m just saying, you and I can have a good time, at least. And look, there won’t even be any other humans there. It’s people from all over the sector. We won’t have to worry about anything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just mean, it’s cool, about the two of us. Nobody there will know any different. To them it would be completely normal.”

There was silence on the other end. “To them,” Bruce said, and there was something strange in his voice, but maybe it was the connection, maybe there was just static. 

“Completely. No one will bat an eye. Hah, get it? Come on, let’s have some fun together.”

“Jordan, I need you to do me a favor. Are you listening?”

“I—yeah, what’s up?”

“Good. Because I need you to go fuck yourself, very slowly and carefully. Actually, never mind that, don’t bother about careful. And once you’re done with that, the second part of the favor is that you never, for any reason other than League business, call me again. Are we clear?”

Hal’s chest was pounding. His face felt frozen. “Bruce, what the hell,” he murmured, but he could already hear the click of his communicator, and knew that the line was dead.

“Jordan!” Kilowog called. “Come over here, Tomar-Re maintains that humans’ navels are located in their abdomens! I have fifty qwan-shin that says he is a liar, I know you have a hole directly behind your balls, yes? Come over here and bend over and show him where your navel is!”

Hal shut his eyes and leaned against the wall. “That’s not my navel, Kilowog, that is apparently my brain,” he murmured. “Fuck. Jesus fucking _fuck_.”

* * *

So that was that.

It wasn’t like he didn’t hear what he had said. It had taken him maybe point-seven seconds to replay the entire conversation and hear it. So okay, yes, maybe in retrospect not the best wording, but come on. Really, come the fuck on. 

“Pick up, you son of a bitch,” he muttered, because of course he did the only thing he knew to do, which was to call him back. To try to explain. He didn’t call him back immediately, of course; he waited a few hours, and he made sure he had calmed down. He might have had a little Doncassian ale, to clear his head, but that was fine, it would help him put his thoughts together. The call went right to voicemail, of fucking course.

“Okay,” Hal said, after the voicemail beep. “I get why you are pissed. I do. But I wasn’t saying that _you_ were not normal, I was saying that _this entire situation_ is not normal, which objectively it is not, all right? And that’s not me talking, that’s just statistics. Statistics, man. I meant like, in terms of population averages and percentages. All right? That’s just speaking from the point of view of the mainstream. And in the second place, _you_ are the one who isn’t into people knowing your business, right? You’re the one who sits there listening to people say stupid homophobic shit without ever opening your goddamn mouth, you were the one who—”

He broke off, and sighed. There was no way Bruce was listening to this anyway. “What the fuck ever,” he said, and hung up.

But he couldn’t sleep, so an hour after that he called back. “No, I really _don’t_ get why you’re pissed,” he said this time. “I’m sorry, I lied before, I don’t get it. You want my opinion, I think you threw a little shit fit because you thought I was saying something I wasn’t. Well, way to play into every moronic alpha-queer stereotype ever invented, you demented anger-management-school drop-out. I mean seriously, what the hell? And also, you know what? I’m gonna tell you what. Because fine, you want to live in a world where being queer is some kind of normal? Then great, I guess your money buys you that. I guess you can do whatever the fuck you want, in whatever little fantasy world you’ve built for yourself there. But me, I live in the real world, where these things matter. They matter in the Air Force, and they matter out there in the world where _normal_ people live, and by that I mean people who are not fucking billionaires, all right? You know what’s not normal? Having more money than Jesus Christ, that’s what’s not fucking _normal_ , asshole, so don’t you dare lecture me about—”

He stopped when he realized he was shouting. “Who am I kidding,” he sighed. “You’re not listening to this.” And he ripped his communicator out and tossed it beside his bed.

He woke in the morning to a Doncassian ale hangover and a painful clarity about every word he had said last night. That was the thing about Doncassian ale, it never ever allowed you to forget shit. There was a lot to be said for some good old-fashioned Earth vodka, not least of which was its ability to erase whole acres of your brain. He fumbled for his communicator, and tried again.

“Hey,” he said into the voicemail this time. “Hey, it’s. . . it’s me. I realize there is zero chance you are listening to this, so I guess this is just for the record, all right? I said some shit-tastic things last night. I’m sorry. I didn’t. . . I didn’t mean to say any of it like that. I just. . .”

He sighed and rolled over in his cot, and stared at the ceiling. They were back on Oa now, and the dawn light had this pinkish cast that everyone always said was so beautiful but that always made Hal feel slightly nauseated. “I fucked up,” he said. “Like I always do, I guess. It was bound to happen sooner or later. So this isn’t even about that. I guess I just wanted to say thank you. I had. . .I know this is going to sound weird to say it, but I had an amazing time, being with you. It was amazing. You. . . you are amazing. I. . .” His throat clenched shut, his chest tightened. _Oh yes please, that would be excellent, let’s cry into Bruce’s voicemail, perfect, let’s do that._

“I had a really good time, is what I’m trying to say, every time I was with you, and you. . . you were right about a lot of things,” he continued. “That’s all I wanted to say. I learned. . . I learned a lot. I’ll try not to forget any of it. I just. . .” He swallowed hard against whatever weird anaphylactic thing was going on in his throat. “I’ll see you around,” he said. 

He let the communicator drop back to the floor and lay there in the pinkish light, hands pressed to his face. The pale pink nauseating fingers of light kept prying at his hands though. 

The clarity of that ale was pretty fucking relentless.

After a lifetime of keeping his own counsel, and pretty much a religion of keeping the League nine thousand miles away from his personal life, Bruce makes a move on a League member. It could have backfired spectacularly. There was an argument to be made that it had, in fact, backfired spectacularly. But Hal had never sat and thought it out, the risk Bruce had taken with him that first day in the Javelin. He had to have already trusted Hal – trusted that no matter what happened, Hal was not going to tell anyone else about it. That Hal would not turn on him. He had trusted Hal. 

_To them it would be completely normal._ That was what he had said to Bruce. And what Bruce had heard, of course, was _to me it will never be completely normal._ Maybe that was true; maybe there was some conditioning you just couldn’t overcome, some things you learned when you were young that couldn’t get beat out of you. _I’m happy to fuck you, just make sure no one ever knows about it,_ was what he had said to Bruce. And sure, Bruce was pretty closeted, but it was one thing to keep yourself in the closet, and another when your lover shoved you there, wasn’t it? Because there was a difference, in Bruce’s head, between the closet that the world made necessary, and what he thought of himself. He never thought less of himself, just because the world had it wrong. 

_It has so little basis in reality that it doesn’t even trouble me._ That was what Bruce had said. Bruce knew what was normal, even if the rest of the world didn’t. Even if Hal didn’t. 

He wanted to reach for his communicator and send one more message, one that just said, _I’m sorry._ But he had said his piece, and he wouldn’t bother Bruce any more. 

It was possible the nausea churning his stomach was not all because of the pink light.


	7. Chapter 7

“There’s no way Fraalian aggression is going to stop, not short of a confrontation. Sure as hell wish I had a different answer for you,” Hal said. The sector map was up on the large screen in the League’s conference room, and Superman was standing, staring at it thoughtfully. He was the one asking Hal questions, and Hal was responding to him, and trying very hard not to look at the black cowled figure to Superman’s left. 

“I don’t understand,” Diana was saying. “How is it possible that they could resist their own best interest this way? Has the Corps not explained to them the advantage of a diplomatic solution?”

“Yeah, well, people do stupid shit, exhibit forty-seven thousand,” Hal said. “I mean, fuck if I know, princess. And yes, we have sat at that negotiating table with them seven times now, in the last six Earth months. I’ve been at five of those negotiations. But things are getting worse, not better – they’ve had elections recently, and their leader has them convinced the Corps is weak, that if the Fraalians push at the borders of the containment zone, the Corps won’t be able to hold them.”

“Are they right?” It was the first thing Bruce had said, and he was looking right at him. 

“They might be,” Hal said. It was the first time he had allowed himself to say it, but it was just this room, just the handful of them, and the League deserved the truth. “No one at headquarters wants to think that. But our numerical strength is down, we have the highest percentage of raw recruits we’ve had in generations, and do I think that if the Fraalians pushed, they just might win? Yeah, I do. I wish I didn’t.”

Batman was nodding thoughtfully, and turning back to the starmap. He traced a finger in the direct line from that sector, to Earth. “That’s five days’ journey,” he said.

“Five days isn’t much time to prepare,” Barry said. 

“So we prepare now,” Bruce said. 

“Well, we’ve got one last chance,” Hal said. “One last shot at negotiations. The Fraalians have requested it, actually. A senior level Lantern delegation. I’m part of it.”

“When?” Clark was frowning at him.

“Tomorrow. I just came back to give you this intel. Then I’m back in it.”

“The Fraalians requested this?” Bruce again, that keen gaze staring right at him. Hal didn’t drop his eyes. 

“They did. And yeah, Admiral Ackbar, I’m aware it’s very possibly a trap. But it’s a chance we’ll have to take. Is there any way we can adjourn for a bit and re-convene? Because I am dead on my feet and I have got to sleep.”

“Of course,” Clark said quickly. “Lantern, thank you for this. Let’s adjourn for now, and re-convene before Lantern’s departure in the morning.”

Hal twisted his ring and brought the map projection down, and slipped out of the room before anyone else, headed to his quarters. Superman and Batman were still engrossed in talk, and Barry clearly wanted to ask him some more questions, but Hal was not in the mood for chatting. “Lantern,” he heard behind him, and the surprise of it stopped him more than anything. He had thought Bruce wasn’t paying any attention to his exit, but of course Bruce was always paying attention. He stopped and pasted on his professional expression.

“Batman,” he said. “If this is about the Fraalians and the possibility of a trap, could we just—”

“It’s not. Come with me.”

“Okay but I really need to—”

Bruce was striding quickly ahead of him. “Sleep,” Hal sighed. Bruce was ducking into an empty room off the main corridor. Hal followed, and the door swiped quickly shut. Bruce pulled his cowl off.

“What are you—”

“Don’t go on that delegation.”

“What? I just asked you two seconds ago if this was about that, and you said no.”

“I lied. Hal, it’s almost certainly a trap. Try to think strategically for a minute here. If they wipe out the five or six senior members of the Corps, that’s all the excuse the Corps needs to move in. And then that’s all the excuse the Fraalians needs to launch. It’s the casus belli they’re looking for, and the Corps is about to hand it to them.”

Hal crossed his arms. “Try to think strategically for a minute? Seriously?”

“Sorry, poor choice of words. Get your head out of your ass, is what I should have said.”

“You think being part of this delegation is my choice, that _I’m_ the one who thought this would be a fan-damn-tastic idea? Do you even get, is there any part of you that can approach understanding, what it means to take orders? Or are ‘orders’ just something you give your butler?”

“Ah yes that again. Because Hal Jordan lives in the real world, and not the fantasy world my money has constructed, is that it?”

Hal fell silent. Bruce had actually listened to his messages. There were a thousand sharp retorts he could give, and a thousand more Bruce could fling back at him. That was one thing they had always been able to do. What if just this once, he didn’t? 

“I think we live in the same world,” Hal said, after a bit. “And it’s a world where neither of us has all the choices we want.” 

Bruce’s eyes were sharp on him. He was saying nothing. After a minute he shut his eyes. Hal could see the hollows under those eyes. He looked like things had been bad in Gotham, like he hadn’t slept in days. “What I meant to say,” he said, in another voice, “what I meant to say was, is there any way you can speak to other members of this delegation, or to your superiors, and persuade them of the probable danger of this mission?”

“I did that yesterday.”

“And?”

“It didn’t go well.”

They were silent again. Bruce pulled off his gauntlets and examined them, as though there was imaginary lint on them. “What if this,” he said, tossing them on the table. “What if I took the Javelin and a skeleton crew, just a few of us, and we hovered on the edges of Fraalian space tomorrow? Just in case we were needed.”

“So that you can do what, give the Fraalians more reason to say they’re being attacked?”

“So we could be there as back-up for you. We would be there with one purpose and one purpose only – to get you safely out of there should things go wrong.”

“Bruce. You can’t turn my safety into the League’s sole purpose.”

“Watch me.” 

Hal gave a tired laugh, and Bruce even smiled a little. “Is there any way—can I please just touch you,” Hal said, and Bruce opened his arms and Hal practically fell into him. He wrapped his arms so tight around Bruce, inhaling deeply, and Bruce was holding him just as tight.

Nothing had ever felt so good. Nothing had ever smelled as good as Bruce right now, at this exact moment. Hal nudged at his jaw until he found the sweetest, sharpest pools of scent, right at the base of his throat, underneath his jaw. He breathed in, and he could feel Bruce doing the same on his neck. 

He felt the long slow rasp of Bruce’s tongue against his neck. Bruce was tasting him, savoring him. “Oh God,” Hal groaned. “Fuck that feels—”

He lowered his head and did the same to Bruce, and felt the shudder in Bruce’s whole body at it. “That feel good, baby?” he murmured, and did it again, a long swipe up that gorgeous stubbled neck, so thick and rich with scent Hal’s knees almost buckled at it. 

“My quarters,” Bruce said, his voice about five registers lower, and Hal didn’t object. 

They were both so exhausted that that was pretty much all they did that night – just lick each other’s scents like they were starving for it. Every time Hal thought he had discovered all Bruce’s scent spots, he would find another one. He would lick just underneath Bruce’s ear, and lick, and lick, until Bruce was gasping and dry humping his leg, and then Bruce would grab a fistful of Hal’s hair and wrench his head around and start licking the same spot on Hal’s neck, driving him just as wild. By common consent they didn’t even take all their clothes off; nakedness would have made it harder to concentrate on the scent and taste. Their kisses became less like kisses and more like long slow tongue rubs, messy and open-mouthed.

Hal finally came, from all the rubbing and the licking. “Sorry,” he panted, and Bruce wedged a leg in between his to give him something to ride and Hal just fucked his leg and came and came. At the peak of his orgasm he felt something sharp as knives on his neck, and knew it was teeth, knew Bruce had fucking _bit_ him, the son of a bitch, and he did nothing but tip his neck back and cry out his pleasure at it, and pump cum down onto Bruce’s leg, soaking them both. He could feel the blood on his neck. He yanked at Bruce’s hair and exposed that glorious neck, and he bit him right back, right on his neck, and Bruce groaned and came. The taste of alpha-scent in cum and sweat was nothing to its taste in blood. Hal felt drunk with it, delirious. 

They were both so wiped that they ended up sleeping later than Hal had planned on. He stumbled up and pulled his wrecked clothes together and glanced in the mirror on his way out the door. “Fucking _shit!_ ” he yelled, when he caught sight of his neck. It was swollen and purpled and unmistakable. 

“Hey dickhead!” he shouted at the unmoving mountain on the bed. A bleary head was raised, and two blue eye-slits squinted at him. “Nice work, asshole,” Hal said, pitching a stray pillow at him. “Any ideas how I’m supposed to go to work today, looking like someone took a baseball bat to the side of my fucking neck?”

“That’s not what it looks like,” Bruce rasped. “It looks like you were marked.” He rolled over, and Hal was mildly consoled at seeing how much worse Bruce’s wound was. 

“Oh wow,” he said. “Whoops. I was. . . maybe I should have been a little more careful there.” But he gave a small laugh. Bruce’s fingers were exploring, and he winced at the flakes of dried blood on his fingers. Truthfully, Hal could probably arrange his uniform collar to cover most of his, which was at the base of his neck. Bruce’s mark was much higher up on his neck, and pretty much unconcealable. But Bruce appeared unconcerned. He yawned and rolled over. 

“The suit will cover mine,” he said. “You might want to consider an ascot. Make something with your ring, it should be fine.”

“Oh sure, I’ll just whip up a glowing green feather boa. That should look completely fine.”

“Relax, you’re an alpha. Worst case scenario, it looks like a little bit of rough sex.”

Hal studied his reflection in the mirror. Rough sex. Truth was, it had been the furthest thing from that imaginable. He touched the bruise on his neck, and the streaks of dried blood. If he were an omega, the swelling would be permanent, the mark forever visible. But he was just an alpha, and this was just a bruise. It would fade, and no one would ever even know it had been there. Two alphas following ancient alpha instinct, only without an omega to bite they had just bitten each other. 

_You want to fuck an alpha, you learn the first rule: no biting,_ Bruce had said. Well, they were operating a little outside the rules zone at this point. 

“Try not to get killed today,” Bruce said, watching him.

“Yeah, right back at you. Bruce, listen. You keep the hell away from Fraalian space today, you got that? I’m serious. Do not fucking interfere.”

Bruce was silent. 

“Bruce,” Hal said, and there was alpha growl behind it, a low menace of warning. Bruce laughed. 

“That’s not likely to work on me.”

“I gave you an order,” Hal said. “Stay away.” The deep rumble of his growl was underneath it, lower than before, more threatening. 

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Are you challenging me?” 

Hal didn’t break eye contact. His growl would have been sub-audible to anyone but another alpha. _Alpha-queers are just more aggressive individuals,_ said a long-ago echo in his head. Hal was circling the bed now, and Bruce had gone very still, his eyes the only thing moving, tracking Hal. 

“Maybe I am,” Hal said.

“Believe me when I say you’re making a mistake.”

The room was deathly still. Hal could read the tension in every muscle of Bruce’s exposed chest. The air was thick with alpha-scent. His own heart was racing, adrenaline and alpha-hormone flooding his veins. It was inevitable; they had been working up to it for years. Fucking each other had just made it more inevitable. But still, part of him was waiting for Bruce to lower his eyes. Hoping, maybe. And another part was hoping he wouldn’t. Those ice-lake eyes were watching him. 

He had one advantage in hand-to-hand with Bruce, and that was his speed. He was just marginally faster than Bruce, which made him difficult to read. That was why those eyes were tracking him so carefully. Bruce had greater muscle mass (though arguably not in his legs), but that mass cost him speed, and Hal was lightning quick. He had one chance and one chance only, and that was first strike. So he coiled and struck, a heartbeat before Bruce would expect him to. He knocked Bruce clean off the bed and to the floor and had him down, he had gotten in a clean hit and he kept hitting. Bruce leveraged his upper body strength to roll them and got Hal in a pin, but he got clear and struck again, and again. His veins were singing with it, electric with it, and this, yes _this_ was what he had been missing in his life. This was what he had been craving for months, for years, the raw unbreakable honesty of this. He was nothing but strength and force and lethal power, using every bit of his flexibility to his advantage as he rolled and twisted them on the floor. He struggled onto Bruce’s chest and landed a powerful backhand that brought the blood. 

That was when he realized Bruce wasn’t fighting him.

He raised his hand for the next blow, and held it there. His hand was shaking. Beneath him, Bruce’s face was turned. He wasn’t blocking the blow. He wasn’t defending himself. He wasn’t fighting. “Fight me,” Hal snarled.

“No,” Bruce said.

Hal roared with rage. “ _Fight me!_ ” he yelled.

Bruce turned his head and looked at Hal, steady on his eyes. “No,” he said again.

“You. . . you have to fight. You fucking—you have to _fight_ me.” Hal raised his shaking fist again.

“Go on,” Bruce whispered. “I can take it.”

Hal was breathing so hard he could almost not get air. Nothing was making sense. He lowered his fist, the one that had been poised to crash into the bloody mess of Bruce’s face. All his limbs were trembling in the wash of adrenaline. He looked around the room like he had just come into it, like he didn’t recognize any of it.

“Jesus. . . Jesus Christ,” Hal panted. “Fucking Christ.”

He staggered up, off of Bruce. Bruce who had been trying to pin him, but had probably given up when he saw the pin was hurting him. Bruce who had just laid there and taken blow after blow. Bruce whose mouth had kissed him, whose body had pleasured him, and who Hal had just beaten into bloody oblivion. Hal couldn’t stop the trembling. 

“You were supposed to fight,” he said. “Why didn’t you—why would you—what. . .”

He wiped at his mouth, tried to still his breathing. Bruce was getting up now, a bit more slowly, wincing as he moved. He tugged at the wreckage of the bedclothes and daubed at his face, examining the blood on the sheet. Hal could not find words. He watched Bruce go to the bathroom sink and wash his face off, watched him towel off his hands. Hal just stood there. He looked around the room, hoping maybe he would see a carving knife that hadn’t been there before so he could slice off his hands. 

“Oh, relax,” Bruce said sourly, tossing the towel at the basket. “All your internal flailing is giving me a headache. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it was bound to happen at some point.”

“Bound to happen,” Hal said numbly.

“You’re a high-level alpha, you think I didn’t know I would have to fight you sooner or later?”

“But you didn’t.”

Bruce shrugged. The abrasions on his face would be a fierce bloom of bruise soon. “I took a chance.” 

A chance that Hal would stop before he killed him. That was the chance he meant. The shame roiled Hal’s gut, scalded him. He knew only one thing to do, and so he did it. Every neuron in his body quivered in rebellion at it, but he did it. Slowly he lowered his knees to the floor. He bent his head, turned it aside. Exposed his neck. The pose of submission made his heart beat fast again, his breath come short. But still he held it, no matter what it cost. Wouldn’t look at Bruce. Wouldn’t get up until Bruce told him to. Wouldn’t breathe unless Bruce told him to.

He heard Bruce bend down beside him. “You think I want that,” he said, and something in his voice sounded. . . Hal didn’t know the word for it. “Is it so impossible to imagine that I don’t want that? Is it finally just beyond you, the idea of a world where. . .” He broke off. “Just. . . stop it. Get up.”

He rose. Hal was confused. He didn’t understand anything that had happened in the last twenty minutes in this room. “I don’t understand,” Hal said.

“I know.”

“You’re an alpha,” Hal said stubbornly. It was like his brain was broken on that fact.

“Yes.” 

“Then why the fuck don’t you act like one?”

Bruce eased himself so he was sitting on the bed. He was moving a bit stiffly. There was blood dripping down the side of his face. “I don’t know, Jordan,” he said. He sounded tired. That was the thing in his voice. “I don’t know. Probably because I didn’t learn how to be an alpha from a high school textbook. You’ve spent your whole life letting someone else tell you who you are. Doesn’t it ever occur to you to think for yourself?”

“Doesn’t it ever occur to you not to be a patronizing dickhole?”

Bruce’s sigh was as weary as his voice. “That sounds more like it,” he said. “Go on, get on your goddamn spaceship and leave me in peace, for once.”

Hal tried to think of something to say but couldn’t. He strode quickly out of the room where nothing made sense any more, and didn’t look back. Part of him was hoping there would be a battle today, or worse. At least war made sense. In war, people pretty much did the thing you expected them to do, and the thing you could always expect them to do was try to kill you. You could trust people who were trying to murder you. They wanted one thing from you, and one thing only. 

Right now, there was something very refreshing about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, I thought it might be helpful if I put in words some of what I am thinking of, in terms of this particular omegaverse. A commonplace of the A/B/O trope is that gender hierarchy has been completely overwritten by sexual caste hierarchy. That has not exactly been my model, because gender is not absent or irrelevant in this universe. That is most important in terms of reproduction. This universe touches on pregnancy only glancingly, but only females can get pregnant. No males have uteruses. Other than the ability to knot, there is no physical change from our universe to theirs. It's a purely canid universe, one driven by pack dynamics, not magical anatomy. Caste is important -- possibly the most important thing -- but gender is not erased. 
> 
> Female omegas are highly fertile. Female betas, much less so, though it has been known to happen. Female alphas, never -- their uterus is all but a vestigial organ. (Maybe. Stay tuned on that one.) In this universe, rich beta women can afford all kinds of fertility drugs to aid in conception and gestation. For rich alpha women, there's a brisk and very shady business in omega surrogates. So if you're hanging on in this story hoping for some male pregnancy, you are going to be disappointed. No butt-babies. 
> 
> Finally, gender distinctions are alive and well in other ways. Most alphas, for instance, tend to be male, and the stereotype (probably untrue) is that the male alphas are even more aggressive than the females. That's why Hal makes the point to Dinah that he's even slept with a _male_ alpha, and not had any aggression problems.


	8. Chapter 8

Funny that he had flown all those tours of duty in some of the worst war zones on Earth, and regularly dodged radioactive lasers while flying through space, but the closest he had ever come to death was a diplomatic mission. It would make a better story if he had been able to remember any of it, but that was another thing he hadn’t been prepared for, was how traumatic injury would mess with your memory.

He remembered landing with the other members of the delegation, and then he remembered the reception afterwards, and he remembered thinking that just about the only threat to his life here was the possibility he might die of boredom during yet another interminable speech from one of the Fraalian dignitaries. But what happened after that he really couldn’t say; there were long gaps in his memory, punctuated by moments of crystal clarity. He remembered, for instance, the ooze of blood between his fingers as he clutched his abdomen, but he didn’t remember how he had gotten to the Javelin. Bruce must have slipped a zeta-tracker on him at some point, was the only explanation he had for that one. And things people said, he could remember that – he could remember voices around him. 

There was shouting, when he came to in the Javelin. How had he gotten there? There had been the speeches, and the applause, and then they had just opened fire – that must be what had happened. At first he thought the ship was upside down when he opened his eyes, but then he realized he was on the floor. He was lying on the floor of the Javelin pooled in his own blood. “Clark!” Bruce was shouting. “ _Clark!”_ Bruce was holding him up, he was lying in Bruce’s arms. Something about Bruce looked wrong. 

“Hold him still,” someone else was yelling. The Javelin spun around, or maybe that was him.

“I have to seal this, there’s too much blood,” Clark was saying, and Bruce was shouting something else, his voice harsh and angry, why was Bruce so angry with him? There were other hands at his abdomen, pressing on him. Funny how his vision was fading at the edges, narrowing to a circle tinged with red.

But he knew what he saw. He couldn’t explain what he saw, but he saw it. Someone was lifting him up, getting him to the platform in the back of the Javelin, and the pain shot through him like a spear, and he groaned aloud. That was the first time he remembered feeling pain from the wound, because before there was just shock and numbness. Everyone was instantly around him trying to get him up, to help him lie down, but not Bruce. Not Bruce, because he saw Bruce gasp, and stagger, and hold onto the hull of the Javelin. No one else saw, but Hal did. Saw him almost crumple. And then he righted himself, but his face was white as a sheet. 

“Blood loss,” Clark was murmuring, but no, wait, Clark was talking to someone else. “Hold him down while I seal this, it’s going to hurt like hell but he’s not going to make it if I don’t, what the hell kind of weapons did they use? Hold on Hal, I’m going to try to—”

And then Hal remembered his own scream as the white-hot beams burned into his lacerated flesh, seared through his internal organs. That was when things shut down again, and he didn’t remember any more until med bay back on the Watchtower, and waking up after surgery. 

He lay in the med bay bed a while before he tried to move, just staring at the ceiling. It felt like days later. It probably was. And the funny thing was, it was like his brain had been working on the problem all the time he had been unconscious, because the first thing he thought when he woke up was, if he had had a zeta-tracker on him, where the hell had it been? Because that had to be the answer, that was the only way he could have been gunned down in that reception hall and bleeding out on the floor of the Javelin the next. But where had the tracker been? Bruce hadn’t had access to his uniform, that was generated by the ring, he couldn’t have.

Or no, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t that he woke up still wondering about it. He woke up knowing the answer already, because the second he thought the question he knew the answer. His brain had been puzzling it out the whole time.

“Welcome back,” said the voice beside him. A face that loomed over him and then went away, but came back with water and a hand propping him up. Hal winced, but he drank. The hand eased him back down.

“I distinctly remember telling you not to get killed,” Bruce said.

“I. . didn’t,” Hal said, but his voice was shockingly hoarse and thin. He swallowed.

“Not for lack of trying. Drink.” Hal obediently swallowed some more of the metallic-tasting water. This time when Bruce eased him back down, he shut his eyes. 

“My team,” he murmured. “What happened? Are they—is anyone—”

“They didn’t make it. You barely did. It was assassination, pure and simple. A Fraalian hit team opened fire right in the reception hall.”

“The Corps, are they—”

“They’re retaliating even as we speak. They have the pretext for confrontation they wanted, and so do the Fraalians. Everybody wins, except the thousands who will die. It’s time for pain meds. You can up your dose by pressing the button, if you want.”

Hal twitched his finger, and felt the blessed relief wash over him, a slow golden flood of light and morphine. Bruce was fiddling with his line, straightening it for him. “My neck,” Hal whispered. 

“Hmm?”

“My neck. That’s where. . . where the tracker is. That’s how you did it. That’s why you bit me.”

“Well, no one ever called you stupid.”

Hal tried to laugh, but there was a knife in his gut when he did, and it became a cough. “You do, all the time,” he croaked. “Like literally every day. You call me idiot like every fourth word.” 

Bruce was silent, and Hal let himself drift for a while. The morphine was really hitting him now. He couldn’t have said how long he drifted – hours, days, who knew. He must be on the really good drugs. God bless Leslie Thompkins. He stirred, and there were hands re-arranging the blankets for him, shifting his pillow so he could be more comfortable. 

“You pulled me out too soon,” Hal said, waking to sudden clarity. “I should have been there, I could have protected my team, I needed to—”

“In the first place, you were on the floor in a pool of your own blood, you weren’t protecting anyone, and your team was already dead. And in the second place, I wasn’t the one who pulled you out.”

“Who. . .”

“Clark had the controls of your tracker and was monitoring the situation on the planet, not me.”

“Why?”

“Because I needed to be at the controls of the Javelin. If you’re not there, I’m her best pilot.”

He must have truly skated close to death, for Bruce to be acknowledging that Hal was the better pilot. He shut his eyes again. “Didn’t hurt my ship, did you,” he murmured. 

“What do you mean, _your_ ship,” Bruce said, and it was their old argument, familiar and comforting. 

“You look. . .terrible,” Hal said, really looking at Bruce for the first time. Or his eyes were actually focusing now. “What happened to your face?”

“Some crazy-ass alpha I know. Here, try to drink some more.”

Hal raised a weak hand and waved the water away. “Can’t. I’m gonna. . . be sick.”

“No vomiting,” Bruce said. “Leslie sewed you back together, but you’ve got about nine yards of stitches in you. You’re under strict orders to do nothing more strenuous than inhale, for about six weeks.”

He drifted again, and when he woke he wasn’t sure if it was the same day, or another one. Who could tell, in space? Sometimes he really fucking hated space. Bruce was there still. He was wearing something different. 

“For the record,” Bruce said, like they had been having a conversation that had only momentarily paused. “I bit you because I wanted to. I could have thought of another way to place that zeta-tracker on you. I’m what you might call resourceful.”

“You’re what I might call a manipulative asshole.”

“There’s Hal Jordan, I was getting a little worried.”

“I’m a little worried I can’t stay conscious.”

“Try going easier on the morphine then.”

“The fuck you say, they can have my morphine trigger when they pry my cold dead finger off it. Hey Bruce.”

“Hm.”

He didn’t have anything to say. It was just that Bruce had gotten up to do something on the other side of the room, and Hal was worried he might be about to leave. “Hey, can you. . . are you gonna stay for a bit more?”

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Bruce said. “I’m right here. Barry and Oliver came by to see you. Oliver brought you a milkshake, if you want it.”

“Hard pass. You can have it.”

“I’m lactose intolerant.”

Something about that was so profoundly funny to Hal that he couldn’t stop laughing, even though it hurt his gut like a motherfucker and just ended in another coughing fit, which hurt worse. He kept hearing it in the Batman voice. Batman with his cowl up, his cape swirling, the steam off the dark city streets enveloping him. Lactose Intolerant Man. Villains flinging artisanal yogurt at him. 

“Idiot,” Bruce sighed, and went back to whatever he was reading. 

Hal let himself doze a bit more, and Bruce got up to fiddle with the IV line some more, when it started beeping. Hal reached for him when he did, just a nudge of his hand against Bruce’s. Bruce’s hand clasped his. Bruce’s other hand brushed at his forehead, stroking back a bit of hair. But sharper and sweeter than that, there was a thumb that pressed lightly against the fading mark on his neck, and was gone as quickly.

* * *

His recovery was faster than he had thought it would be, so much so that Hal wondered how much the ring was boosting his body’s natural processes. He hadn’t really had occasion to test that theory out before, but it appeared to be working for him. He was on his feet in a matter of days, and a week and a half out, felt almost normal except for the residual tenderness in his abdomen. He was still on medical leave though, so he enjoyed just spending some time Earthside. And yeah, he enjoyed spending time with Bruce too – time that wasn’t bookended by some world-ending crisis or other, long days in which he could lie on his sofa, and in which his most challenging question was how many episodes he might want to binge-watch today. Bruce was surprisingly enjoyable to watch stupid TV shows with, because he was incapable of watching anything passively. He brought all his investigative skills to bear on whatever he was watching, and could devote just as much earnestness to a discussion of the latest episode of Rick and Morty as he did to drug trafficking in the Gotham Narrows. 

“You know there are some re-booted episodes of the X-Files out there,” Hal said one afternoon, digging with his spoon for more caramel chunks in his ice cream carton. “If you felt like getting your Mulder and Scully on, that is.”

“Interesting,” Bruce said. “What was the original show about?”

Hal set down his ice cream. “What?” he said. “I’m sorry, you just said _what_ to me?”

“Why do I feel like I’m about to lose days of my life?”

“Because you fucking are, that’s why. Sit your ass down here right now, Spooky, you are about to meet the one and only OG Spooky.”

Watching Bruce discover the X-Files was about the most fun he had ever had while fully clothed, that was for damn sure. He noticed that every time Scully appeared Bruce stared at the screen with rapt attention, which obviously, an alpha like Gillian Anderson was going to do it for him, but apparently she really did it for him. 

“You sleep with Selina, right?” Hal asked.

“A complicated question,” Bruce said.

“Yeah yeah, I get that, molto di drama and all that, but I’m not wrong that you guys have gotten down and dirty, on frequent occasions.”

Bruce shrugged noncommittally. Onscreen, Scully was snapping on the latex gloves. Hal could practically see Bruce’s pupils widen. “I’m asking because she’s about as omega as they come. Like, pretty much the stereotype of the omega, you know? So do you fuck her so that people will think you’re straight? Or do you fuck her because you sometimes like it both ways?”

Scully was explaining something science-y to Mulder, so he couldn’t be entirely sure Bruce was really listening to him. Because he rarely watched TV, Bruce was bad at treating it like background noise. When Scully was finished he frowned and look at Hal. “I sleep with Selina because I want to, why else would you sleep with someone?”

“Yeah, but like, _why_ do you want to, if you’re gay? That was my only question.”

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“Well for someone who’s not gay, you sure do seem to like rubbing your knot on another alpha’s.”

“Fair. So your argument is, sex is sex, and humans like sex.”

“I’m not making any argument at all. You’re the one who seems to need reasons for everything. Now shut up, I’m trying to listen to this.”

Because of his injury, strenuous fucking was pretty much out of the question. It was a little too bad, because in recent weeks they had definitely perfected the whole fucking thing. Hal knew exactly when and how to pull out before he knotted (mainly because he learned by feeling how Bruce did it, though he wouldn’t have admitted it) and all the other advanced jujitsu of alpha-on-alpha sex. Really he felt like he deserved some kind of certificate or something. But just fooling around, in the lazy days of his recovery, was somehow even better. What it meant was long, slow, languid sessions of Bruce sucking his cock, or of Bruce slowly rubbing a finger back and forth on his knot, all the while soothing him and making him lie almost motionless until his slick spilled out of him in slow lazy drops. Bruce lying carefully alongside him, the heat and pressure of his knot up against Hal’s, the sweet torment of it, as they came with quiet gasps, Hal’s fingers digging into him.

For now he had decided to take a page out of Bruce’s book, and stop worrying about Reasons For Things. He had also decided that he had been too hard on Bruce, about not acting like an alpha. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed obvious to him. Bruce had basically been raised by Alfred, who was a beta. And not just any beta – about the most beta individual you could imagine. Like, there was a picture of Alfred next to the word “beta” in the dictionary. Of course Bruce would have absorbed Alfred’s values. He hadn’t had any other role models, was the thing. Of course being raised by a beta would have warped him in some ways. 

He was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him earlier. It wasn’t that Bruce had some sort of hormonal imbalance, like most alpha queers. He had just been shaped from an early age by a beta, and had never really been around other alphas. Or hadn’t been around them in his formative years, or something. There were some problems with that theory – like, he knew of plenty of families where one or more of the kids would be a different caste from the bonded-pair parents. And then, too, Bruce would have been around lots of other alphas in boarding school and in college. But still, plausible enough. 

No, on the whole, he was done wondering about the why of things. When the sex was this good, who the hell needed Reasons?


	9. Chapter 9

“Hey, what’s up?” Hal strode quickly into the Cave, a little concerned but not overly so. Bruce’s text had said it was urgent, but Bruce tended to think regularly scheduled equipment maintenance was urgent too, so there was never any telling. Hal trotted up the short flight of stairs to the large console and monitor, which Bruce was sitting in front of, apparently lost in thought.

“Hey,” Hal said more softly, sliding a hand on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce looked at the hand. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “There’s something you need to see.”

“Okay.” Hal pulled up a stool. 

Bruce clicked a bit, and pulled up a screen of what appeared to be chemical analysis. “All right,” Hal said, “what am I looking at?”

“Take a closer look.”

“I. . . okay. Analysis of some kind. Blood analysis. From a crime scene?”

“It’s your blood. I accessed some of your sample from your appointment with Leslie last week.”

“I’m guessing this is not going to be a conversation about what a creepy fucking violation of privacy that is?”

“Not tonight,” Bruce said, clicking some more, zooming in. “Take a look at your hormone levels. This is not something Leslie would have been testing for, or anyone would be likely to notice. Do you have enough basic biology to know what you’re looking at?”

“Ah. . .” Hal skimmed through the list of blood components and percentages. “I mean, sure? Enough to know I’m not dying of leukemia? Everything looks normal, except maybe—I dunno, what’s that?”

Bruce zoomed in further. “PBG,” he said. “Parathyrmatic binding globulin.”

“That’s. . . bonding hormone,” Hal said. 

“Yes.”

“It shouldn’t. . . I mean, was this sample contaminated? Because that’s weird. I sure as hell don’t have any bonding hormone in me right now.”

Bruce was silent, but he was back to clicking on the keyboard. He pulled up another chemical analysis and positioned it side by side with Hal’s sample. The PBG levels on the second sample matched the first exactly.

“Huh,” Hal said. “So you ran it twice?”

“No,” Bruce said. “That’s my blood.”

Hal looked at him. “So you’re telling me we both got contaminated with bonding hormone somehow.”

“Am I?”

“I mean obviously so, take a look. What the hell is that doing there?”

“It might interest you to know that there have been no medical advances in the last five decades that have made injectable PBG possible. In every possible trial, the host rejects the hormone, usually within a period of six to ten hours. Plenty of hormones are delicate enough for that to be the case; the molecular structure just breaks down. Bonding hormone can’t be injected, and there’s no known way for it to be transmitted.”

“That. . .” Hal was frowning in confusion. He got up from his stool and walked closer to the giant screen, standing in its blue wash. “It’s just, this is not physically possible.”

Bruce was silent. He was in his suit, the cowl pushed off. Leaning on a thoughtful hand. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping. He wasn’t watching the screen; he was watching Hal. “How so?”

“What do you mean, _how so_ , this makes no sense! Bonding hormone—I mean, I know for a fact I have not been sleeping with an omega recently, and bonding hormone is only produced when an alpha and an omega. . .” He trailed off, looked at the screen again.

“You’re an omega,” Hal said, “you have to be, that’s got to be it, a stealth omega of some sort. Show me your hormone levels, all of them, show me your caste markers, there’s got to be something—”

Wordlessly Bruce displayed his complete blood marker profile. His alpha hormone level was through the roof. Hal stared at it. “Show me—show me mine,” he said. Was it him? Was something off with his hormone level? Bruce overlaid his, and brought them into another side-by-side. Two high-level alphas, of almost equal hormone level. And still that PBG reading. 

Hal stared at the screen. Click click click went his brain, right down the line, filling in every blank he had avoided for the last few weeks. Bonding. They were bonding. “This isn’t. . . it’s not physically _possible_ ,” he murmured.

“Cognitive dissonance,” Bruce said. “That’s the name for what you’re experiencing.”

“Fuck you and your condescending bullshit,” Hal snapped. “Can we stop pretending for like five seconds that I graduated top of my class at the Academy while being an absolute fucking moron? Because if you’ve got my entire medical history you’ve also got my fucking IQ on file, so maybe let’s stop defining words for me and start telling me what the hell is going on.”

“You know what’s going on.”

Hal turned back to the screen. “I know what I see here,” he said. “That doesn’t even begin to explain it to me. That doesn’t even come close to explaining a physical impossibility. This is so far off the reservation here I can’t even. . .” He stared at Bruce, who was still calmly watching him.

“You knew,” Hal said. “You knew this was a possibility.”

“Yes.”

“How? Have you—has this happened to you before, is there some sort of—”

In a few more keystrokes, Bruce had overlaid two other blood profiles. Both high-level alphas, but enough of the markers were different that it was clear it wasn’t the two of them. The PBG levels were much higher, for instance: a completed bond. The sort of levels you would see in a mated pair.

“My parents,” Bruce said. 

“Your parents. That’s not—what in the ever-living hell are you talking about.”

“They had money,” Bruce said, “and anything is possible with enough money. When they fell in love, they obtained forged papers, forged medical files identifying her as an omega. She was anything but.”

“Your _parents_ were gay?”

“They were. They had the money and the means to hide it. That’s why I always knew there was nothing wrong with it. That’s why I always knew there was nothing wrong with me. Because I had been raised to understand the world differently.”

“Alpha females can’t. . . they can’t have children,” Hal said. “I don’t understand, were you adopted, were you—”

“They were my biological parents. Alpha females can bear children, but it is enormously difficult, and quite painful. She had the best possible medical care money could bribe, and she came through just fine.”

Hal rubbed at his forehead. “That doesn’t. . . none of this makes any sense,” he said. But it did. He knew it did. It was like the old Sherlock Holmes saying, about the only possible solution. He was seeing everything in the last few weeks, the last few months, in a harsh and strange new light. 

“On the Javelin,” he murmured. “I saw it. I saw you go down. When I was in pain. I saw it. I thought I was imagining it, thought I had hallucinated it. I was in pain, and you—you were in pain too. You know what I’m talking about.” 

And it wasn’t just that moment of seeing his own pain mirrored in Bruce’s body – it was every time in the last week when he would find himself strangely agitated, but calmed in Bruce’s presence. Every time he had sought his touch. Every time he had found himself unable to keep away. It was because there was a bond started, and it wanted to be fed. There was an ache beginning in Hal’s head, at the base of his skull. Information overload. He glared at Bruce.

“You knew this was possible, and you never said.”

Bruce shrugged. “It had never happened to me, so I suppose I just wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Wasn’t _thinking_ about it? This is a hell of a thing not to be thinking about! I mean, Jesus Christ, Bruce, for this to be true. . .” He turned and stared at the screen again.

“For this to be true, everything you know about the way the world works has to be a lie.”

“Nothing you’re saying makes any sense! Alphas bond with omegas, all right, alphas can’t bond with other alphas, alphas can’t make _babies_ with other alphas, none of what you’re asking me to believe has any basis in reality!”

“I’m not asking you to believe anything. I’m just handing you the facts. And the facts are these. Do what you will with them.” He flicked back to the screen with their blood profiles on it. Those high alpha numbers, and those undeniable PBG levels. 

Hal had woken up this morning in one world, and now tonight he was in another one entirely. What else was a lie? Gravity? Was the earth flat after all, was the moon landing a hoax? “So—so you’re suggesting. . . there’s some sort of conspiracy to keep this knowledge from the public, some kind of. . .”

“I don’t think there’s any conspiracy at all. People don’t like to unknow what they know. And this is an easy thing not to know. Unless you’re queer, and happen to know different, but why would the world listen to you? Just one more crazy faggot, and I hear they’ve got hormonal imbalances anyway.” 

Hal sat back down and put his head in his hands. He sat like that for a long minute, letting the shape of this new universe settle in around him. If this were true—and everything in him was saying it _was_ true—then everything was a lie. The whole thing about the world being ordered by caste, by hormones—it was all so much bullshit. People didn’t bond because of their hormone levels; their hormone levels happened because of their bond. And those bonds didn’t happen because of caste—alphas could bond with alphas, and omegas with omegas, and betas with betas, and probably any combination you could think of. The simple elegance of it was overwhelming, when you sat back and looked at it. This whole world that was ordered by chemical compulsion, and in fact they had all been making choices, all along. 

“You’re under no obligation to believe any of this,” Bruce said. “I would be surprised if you did. But I thought you deserved to know.”

“Please just. . . stop talking.” Bruce went back to silence, and Hal sat there too, thinking. “Okay,” he said, after a while. “Okay. So what do we do about it?”

“Do about it?”

“About this. . . this! Is it too late? The bond—our PBG levels aren’t that high yet, can it still be stopped? There has to be a way to stop this, come on!”

Bruce was quiet again, watching Hal. “There is,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Okay, what do we do? Like, hormone therapy, or some chemical thing you’ve cooked up in your lab here?”

“A much simpler way. But it might not be a way you like.”

“Just tell me for fuck’s sake.”

“The fastest way to reverse an incipient bond is to break off all contact whatsoever.”

“Wait. _All_ contact?” 

“All. After a few months, or possibly even weeks, the risk should be minimal. I can monitor our hormone levels to be sure. I would say that physical contact is the real source of the issue, but to play it safe we should suspend all communication of any sort.”

“Oh,” Hal said. “I just. . . there has to be another way. Like a vaccination of some sort, something we can take?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Come on, there has to be another option.”

“The other option is to let the bond take its course.”

“Oh okay, sure, sign me up for that one. I’ll just go ahead and make an irreversible decision that affects _the rest of my goddamn life_ here, but no worries, because the sex is truly spectacular.” 

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Well, that’s the reasoning behind some ninety percent of the bonds on the face of this planet, but set whatever goals you want.”

The skitter of panic and confusion in Hal’s chest was calming now. There was a way out of this; everything would be fine. “Okay,” Hal said, rising. “Okay, sounds like a plan. So, cold turkey, huh. All right, here we go then.” He wanted to stick out his hand, some sort of gesture like that, but maybe that was a bad idea. Bruce had said no physical contact, and there was no time like the present to start. 

“Sorry about this,” Hal said. “I didn’t—mean for things to get this complicated.”

“Nor did I. You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Right. Well. Anyway.” Which left him standing there awkwardly, and only now was it hitting him—he would never taste Bruce’s mouth again, never know the feel of Bruce’s hair between his fingers, the scrape of his jaw against his, the way Bruce hitched his breath right before he came, the thousand small particulars of intimacy with someone’s body. Hal had a moment of breathlessness at it. Already he could feel his own body rebelling. 

“It isn’t going to be easy,” Bruce said. “That’s something else you should know.”

“Yeah well, I’ll survive.”

“I don’t doubt it. Good-bye, Jordan.”

“See ya ‘round, Bats.” And he turned and began his slow walk out the long tunnel of the cave. Every footstep felt heavy. At the bend in the tunnel he rested his hand against the cool slick rock, and he almost turned back around to look, to get one last glimpse. A treacherous _go back, go back, go back_ was beating in his head. What would happen if he went back right now, if he said _fuck everything, I don’t care, I have to touch you or I’m going to die?_

Would Bruce roll his eyes and lecture him about discipline – sneer at him, laugh at his lack of control, his lack of decision? Or would he. . . not? And which possibility was he more afraid of?

He turned and headed with resolute step out the long dark of the tunnel, and into the night air.


	10. Chapter 10

The first week was not bad – not bad at all, really. At first he thought Bruce must have been completely mistaken about the whole thing. And the thought flitted across his brain more than once, that maybe Bruce had just wanted to break off their little whatever, and had come up with this elaborate mindfuck to do it. He could see that. He could see Bruce coming up with something like that, if it got him what he wanted. 

But the point was, other than some occasional discomfort, he was fine. He thought about Bruce a lot—there was no denying that one. Found himself itching to reach for that phone, found himself rationalizing that a text, just one little text, couldn’t be that bad. Just to check in. Just to make sure Bruce was doing all right. But he always stopped himself in time. All in all, no harm no foul. He had had some spectacular sex – that part had certainly been true – and learned some interesting things about the way the world worked, that was for sure. That was for damn sure.

Breaking that bond was so comparatively easy that Hal felt a little guilty, the truth was. Maybe he just wasn’t cut out for the bonding thing. Maybe he was not the kind of person who could really bond with anyone. Probably just a personality thing. And that first week was so easy that it lulled him into thinking, see, everything is fine. Bruce was just over-reacting, like Bruce did all the damn time. Maybe they could even start seeing each other again, after a little bit. Everything was going to be fine. 

He got the idea that maybe he could even help things along a little bit, by getting laid as soon as possible. So he went out and hit some bars, just to be looking around. Nothing really caught his eye though. Everyone smelled a little off. Probably he just had a cold starting, or something like that. And then he got the idea to go back to the sex shop. He didn’t put on a single layer of scent guard, and he walked in and leaned on the counter. Sure enough, there she was—the hot-as-fuck omega with all the piercings, the one who had helped him before.

“Hey I remember you,” she said, not looking up from the magazine she was flipping through. “The beta.”

“Yeah. About that.”

She gave him an up-and-down. “You need help with something?”

“I do, in fact. But I’m hoping we could maybe talk about it over dinner.”

She gave a little snort and went back to her magazine. “I’m on a juice cleanse,” she said. “Purging my body of chemicals.”

“Okay, well technically your body is all chemicals.”

“Well technically stop mansplaining all over my counter.” She reached for a small tin beneath the cash register and pulled out a dark hand-rolled cigarette of some sort. She lit it, and blew a plume of smoke over the cock ring display.

“Ah, pretty sure that’s illegal,” he said.

“Pretty sure this whole store is illegal, but the owner pays off the cops. And it’s cloves, stop looking like I just shot up smack behind the cash register. Look beta boy, did you come in here to buy some merch, or did you come in here because you were looking for a fuck? I’m not judging either way, I’m just trying to plan my day.”

“You are. . . a very direct young woman.”

“And you are a very confused and horny alpha. Jeez, I can smell you from here, were you worried I would maybe not get the message? Fuck’s sake, dude, scent guard is an actual thing.” 

So he didn’t end up taking her to dinner. In fact, he ended up fucking her in the back room during her break, and it was about the fastest and hottest fucking he had ever been a part of. She was dripping with sweet-smelling slick, drenched by the time he slid into her from behind. “Fuck yeah,” she panted. “Get that thick alpha meat in me, come on.”

“Fucking Christ,” he panted. He had forgotten how good this felt, how wrapped by wet heat he was when buried in an omega’s body. 

“Come on, I ain’t got all day, break’s over in ten.” She was so wet it was running down her thighs, running down his. 

“I’m gonna come fast,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“Kind of the fucking point,” she said, but he thrust up on the last syllable and it strangled in her throat, and then he just let himself go, just let himself fuck that wet wet hole as hard as he wanted. He could feel its rhythmic contractions around him, hear her low grunts that told him she was coming, coming all through his thrusts, and he spilled hard inside her. His knot was as fast and fierce as the fucking had been, and she just kept riding it, low moans of encouragement. It was—it was almost, almost enough to come again. She rocked on his knot with a steady stream of appreciative expletives, but the friction was more like a gentle squeeze, and he needed—he needed. . .if he could just shift a bit more. . .

“Fucking stop it,” she hissed, and he stilled. “Gay boys, I swear to God.”

“I’m not—gay,” he panted.

“Shut up and gimme that knot,” she said, her eyes sliding shut again. “Oh fuck, right there. Jeeeesus.”

Afterward, she kissed him, a long languid tongue slide. She twisted around to adjust her clothes, and he took the opportunity to wipe his mouth. It wasn’t that she tasted bad, it was just there was something almost sickly sweet about it, too cloying. He had gotten too used to a taste full of complicated layers, a taste with smoke and darkness underneath it. This was like having a cinnamon bun shoved into his mouth. Was this what omegas had always tasted like, or was there something different about her? He realized he didn’t even know her name.

“I’m Hal, by the way,” he offered, as she was rubbing a spot of slick off her boots. She rolled her eyes and gave a little laugh, and then she had slipped out the door of the break room in a waft of cloves and cum and omega-sweet. 

“Nice to meet you too,” he said to the swinging door.

* * *

On day eight, he woke up in a cold sweat. He staggered into the bathroom and just made it to the toilet before he heaved everything in his stomach, and then just kept on retching. He collapsed back against the wall. Was it the leftover Thai he’d had last night? Maybe he had a virus or something. 

He barely made it through the day. It was lucky it was just paperwork with no flights, but he was still stumbling around like he was in a stupor. “What the hell is wrong with you,” Carol snapped at him. “I’ve told you five times I needed those logs by two, are you hung over or something?”

“What? No! I’m just—I don’t know, I think maybe I’m getting sick.”

“Ugh! Get your nasty sickness germs away from me, Jordan. Go home and don’t come back until you’re safe to be around.”

“Yeah, okay. Sorry.”

“Do I need to bring you meds tonight, or can you be a big boy and actually take something this time? Because I will come by your apartment, you know I will. I’ll wear a haz mat suit if I have to.”

“I’m fine,” he said irritably. 

“Good. Go take your grossness out of here, plague dog.”

He was worse the next day. He left a message on Carol’s voicemail and took a sick day, which turned into four. It was like he had the flu – couldn’t think straight, was almost too dizzy to heat up soup, threw up just about everything he managed to choke down. He was not prone to getting sick, outside of catastrophic injury recovery, so it just made him cranky. He tried to watch something, but he opened up his Netflix window and saw the X-Files and quickly closed it again. His chest was hammering. If he could just call Bruce – maybe since he was sick, it would be okay. Bruce would feel sorry for him if he were sick.

 _That doesn’t sound like a thing Bruce would do,_ his brain said. And then, as long as his brain had him on the phone: _You know why you’re sick._

“No I don’t,” he said aloud, because apparently he was now sick enough that arguing with himself in an empty apartment was a thing he did. “And I’m fine.”

He soldiered through the rest of the second week, and it was like living through the worst flu of his life, but it was survivable. Bruce had said it wasn’t going to be easy. He wondered if Bruce had even noticed any of the effects, in his body. Probably he hadn’t. Maybe this kind of thing happened all the time to Bruce. _But he said it hadn’t ever happened to him before,_ his brain pointed out. He was lying. Lying about everything, maybe. Lying just to get rid of Hal, lying because he had tired of him, lying because he had contempt for Hal. _Idiot,_ Bruce was always calling him. 

He just needed to get off-world, that was the thing. Get back up in space. But right now he was having a bit of a time navigating his way across his damn bedroom, so space was probably not the best idea. But just as soon as he felt better, which would be any day. Any day now.

* * *

By day fifteen, he was done lying to himself.

He woke on that day for his morning retch and caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror. He had lost a good seven pounds, and the hollows under his eyes had hollows under them. His last shave was several days ago. He reached for his razor, and realized that wouldn’t be possible – his hand was shaking too badly. He set the razor down and sank back to the bathroom floor. There was a sharp pain in his middle, deeper somehow than his scar. He bent his head to the cool tile of the floor.

“Bruce,” he whispered.

Every cell in his body ached. He had been sliced stem to stern by alien lasers and stitched back together; he had bailed from an imploding F14, he had broken his arm six times, he had taken a Gondarrian scimitar to the neck in hand-to-hand. None of that had been pain like this, pain that curled every molecule in his body, pain there was no hiding from anywhere, because there was no part of his body that was not writhing with the pain, stabbed with it. He was wrung and gasping on the floor of the bathroom, and then it slowly eased enough to allow him to breathe. He didn’t fool himself it was gone. He didn’t fool himself he was going to survive it. 

From a distance he heard his doorbell ring. _Bruce Bruce Bruce_ sang every nerve in his body, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t going to be. Bruce was somewhere far away from here, brushing off the final annoyance of Hal Jordan. Hal closed his eyes and lay in the wake of the pain. That was when he heard the banging on his door.  
It felt like it took him twenty minutes to reach the front door, and it probably did. “Hal, good God,” Barry gasped when he opened the door. 

“I’ve been sick,” Hal said. He hadn’t heard his own voice in a few days. It sounded like rusted wire dragged over concrete. 

“Lie back down, are you kidding me? Come on, let me help you.” Barry was pushing through his door and catching him before he fell. Barry got him eased onto his sofa. Nice Barry. Barry was so nice. Always looking after people, always caring about people. Barry was a beta. He could have fallen in love with Barry. Why hadn’t it been Barry? 

“You haven’t answered any of my texts for days,” Barry was saying. “When was the last time you ate something? Because I am two seconds from throwing you in the car and getting you to the hospital.”

“No,” Hal croaked. “They can’t help me.”

Barry sat on the coffee table, his eyes soft and concerned. “Why not? Hal, what the hell is going on?”

“You. . . you wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Hal said.

“Try me.”

“I’m sorry. Bar. I just—I can’t. This isn’t anything you can help me with.”

Barry was silent. He went to the bedroom and got a blanket and draped Hal with it. “You know,” he said. “Maybe there are things you don’t have to say out loud to me. Because maybe I listen, and maybe I pay attention to more than Ollie does, on a regular basis. Just saying.”

Hal opened his mouth to answer but was wracked by another wave of pain. He turned his face to the sofa cushions and tried to muffle his groan. “Please,” Hal whispered, when its claws were easing. “I need you to go, all right?”

Barry looked sad. His eyes were blue. Blue like Bruce’s. Except not quite. Barry’s blue was truer, deeper. Bruce’s blue edged to gray, his eyes were so light. Framed by those thick dark lashes, they were indescribably beautiful. Had he kissed them enough, when he had had the chance? He couldn’t remember now. “Okay,” Barry said. “But I’m gonna come by later with some fluids and broth, and you are gonna drink. And here, I found these in your bathroom, at least take some advil, you are burning alive.”

Hal swallowed the meds obediently. He hadn’t been aware of the fever, hadn’t really felt it. Mainly he just felt cold—cold deep in his bones, like he would never be warm again. He knew now that he would not, in fact. He shut his eyes, and when he opened them Barry was gone, and the light in his apartment was different. 

Only later, in doing some after-the-fact investigation, did he discover how close he had come to dying. 

Bruce had been telling the truth, of course, about never having experienced bond-breaking before. He had been giving Hal his best assessment of the situation, but Bruce had miscalculated the extent of their bond, and the strength required to break it. Or maybe that wasn’t it at all, maybe Bruce hadn’t miscalculated. Maybe he had figured that Hal would be fine, the same way Hal kept telling himself Bruce would be fine. They had come terrifyingly close to killing themselves—would have, in fact, if Hal had not woken up on the morning of the eighteenth day and seen everything in his life with the fire-bright clarity of near death. 

He crawled to the bathroom and struggled to stand. 

It was like he was looking at the face of a stranger, but he wasn’t seeing his own face. He was seeing Bruce’s face, and for the first time it hit him, with dull and total certainty, that Bruce was feeling exactly what he was feeling—that Bruce was going through all of this as well. And that – _that_ – was just the thing he could not bear, and he broke. For the first time, he no longer cared what happened to himself. He just did not give a shit, because even though he was staring at his own haggard and wasted face in the mirror, all he could see was Bruce’s face. Bruce, suffering like he was. Bruce’s beautiful body, wracked with fever and pain. Bruce, aching in every cell. Because of him. For him.

“No,” he whispered. “No no no no no.”

He didn’t care about anything else but what was happening to Bruce right now. Whatever it took, whatever he had to do, Bruce would no longer suffer. His own life was for shit. It didn’t matter any more. Bruce needed him, and that was all that mattered.

He never remembered how he managed to get dressed, much less stagger out his front door. Making it to Gotham took him the better part of the day, and there were large blank spots in his memory where he was pretty sure he had blacked out. He missed his train stop twice on account of slumping over and passing out for a while, he knew that for a fact. So the whole trip took him nine hours instead of three, by the time he finally made it to Wayne Manor. 

“Hey buddy, you gonna be all right?” his Uber driver asked. She was leaning out her window and looking like she was thinking about calling 911.

“I. . . yeah. I’m, I’m great,” he said, clutching his middle and fighting off another wave of pain. He pushed it down, pushed it away. His own pain didn’t matter. Only Bruce mattered. Only Bruce. It felt like it was three miles from the stone gates up to the house. He kept his eyes fixed on those giant oak doors cresting the hill. He stopped several times on his way up the hill, and possibly even passed out again. Somehow he made it to the massive doors and collapsed forward onto the doorbell. 

When he opened his eyes, there was an older man standing at the doors. Formally dressed, and impassive. “Hey,” Hal gasped. “Hi. Hello. Hey there. I’m—you’re Alfred, right?”

No expression on the man’s face. Hal was acutely aware of the sweat dripping down the side of his neck and into the collar of his unwashed tee shirt. Also he had not fully taken into account how bad he probably smelled – not just stale alpha reek, but good old-fashioned filthy human stink, with an overlay of sick. “I’m—I need to see Bruce. I—I’m Hal Jordan. I’m the, ah. . .Bruce and I know each other from work, I. . .”

“Yes sir, I know who you are.”

And then it dawned on him: Alfred was not going to let him in. The man had no intention of allowing him inside. Hal swallowed, tried to pull himself together and stand upright, maybe look a little more presentable. He tried to meet Alfred’s eyes, but his own were dim and swimming. He had spent his last reserve of strength to make it here, to Wayne Manor, and the possibility that this had been a terrible mistake began to occur to him. He was going to die, right here on the doorstep of the Manor, but that was fine, for the first time in his life he truly did not give a shit about living, but Bruce. Bruce. He had to do this for Bruce, he had to help Bruce.

“I really, really need to see Bruce. It’s. . . important. Important. . . justice type stuff. And I’m not, I’m not feeling so good, can I please just—just come inside and sit down for a minute, please.”

No change on Alfred’s face. “Okay, you’re mean,” Hal said. “You are. . .not nice. I am going to die here and then you’ll. . . you’ll have to figure out what to do with my body.”

“It’s a large property sir, I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Hal shut his eyes. “Please,” he said. “I know what I did. I know what—what I did to him. Please. . . please. Can I just see him. Please.”

Alfred’s eyes weighted and sifted him. And then he stood aside, holding the door wide. Hal weaved into the cool dark interior, made it across the vast foyer to the base of the wide sweeping staircase. He raised his head to try to see the top, but was assailed by dizziness. “Ah,” he said. “So. . .”

“Third floor, sir. End of the hall to the left.”

“Third floor. Uh huh. I don’t guess there’s an elevator?”

“Straight ahead on your right.”

He seemed to gain strength as he went, somehow. As though now that his body had an end goal in sight – the only possible end goal – it had picked up steam. Or maybe it was just proximity to Bruce that was doing it. But for whatever reason, his footsteps were steadier, his eyesight clearer and less fogged. He was still weaving from side to side, still in so much pain that deep breaths were not really possible, but he could think a little more clearly. Move his feet forward with purpose and intention. There was a door at the end of the third floor hallway, with a food tray resting outside it. Hal could see from here that the food was untouched. He braced against the wall for a second, just breathing in Bruce’s presence, Bruce’s smell, which already filled his nostrils, braced him, strengthened him. 

_Beloved,_ his brain said, and everything in Hal said _Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes._

In the Cave, the night Bruce had shown him the truth about what was happening to them, what was the thing he had said? 

_There has to be a way to stop this._

And Bruce had just been quietly watching him. Had some part of him been hoping Hal’s reaction would be different? _If that’s what you want,_ Bruce had said, and Hal had never stopped to think what that sentence meant – that maybe if Hal had said he wanted something different, they could have had a whole other conversation. He had done this to them. He had. It was his responsibility. His fault. He had said this was what he wanted, and Bruce had acquiesced. _Forgive me, forgive me,_ beat in Hal’s brain. 

He staggered toward the door at the end of the hall, so close to the only place he wanted to, needed to be. He stopped for a second to brace his hand on the wall. That was when he caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eyes. A person—someone was there. Sitting on the window seat of the wide window opposite him. A tall handsome man with dark hair, and a hunting knife. He was cleaning his fingernails with the knife. The early evening light behind him shadowed his features, but Hal didn’t need to see him well to know who he was. It had been years since he had seen that face uncovered, but he would have known it anywhere. 

“Well hey there Hal,” he said. “You don’t look so good.” He hadn’t looked up from cleaning his nails. 

“Jason,” Hal managed.

“Looks to me like you ought to be in bed. Maybe you need yourself a doctor.”

“I’m—I’m fine. What are you—”

“What am I doing here? Funny you should ask. I guess I’m just hanging out. How about yourself?”

“I’m here to see Bruce.”

Jason flicked his knife shut, and his eyes on Hal were steady and unblinking. “Yeah,” he said, “I don’t think so.”

Hal felt the prickle of his hackles. “Jason,” he said. “Get out of my way.”

“See, I actually don’t think I will. I think you wanna get to Bruce, you’re gonna have to go through me.” 

Hal leaned against the wall before he fell over. “Look kid,” he sighed. “I am actually having a really, really bad day. So what’s gonna happen here is, you’re gonna get the hell out of my way.”

“Fuck that,” Jason said, and the low menace of his growl was unmistakable. It was the same menace he had read in Alfred’s face, only this wasn’t a remote, chilly dislike but a palpable hate. He had threatened their alpha, was what he had done. He had hurt Bruce. No one knew that better than he did. 

“So here’s something you probably know all about,” Jason was saying, his voice all silky and dangerous. “You probably know all about how I think Bruce is regularly full of shit. I think he’s an arrogant hypocritical son of a bitch with the social skills of an angry toddler on high-test crank. Most of the time I’d just as soon punch him in the face. But you listen to me and you listen good. You take one step closer to this door, and I will fuck your shit up. We clear?” 

The growl was overt now. A challenge, alpha to alpha. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Hal sighed. “Look, street ninja. I have zero doubt you are the baddest dude in the motorcycle gang, but I’m the Green Lantern, and I—”

An expertly aimed set of nunchuks had wrapped around his calves and felled him, and he gasped for breath. The green glow sputtered to life, several seconds too late as it turned out, and then died. He was too weak. Focus, Hal. Focus.

“Don’t make me—hurt you,” Hal said.

“Looks like you’re having a little trouble getting it up there, GL. No worries, it happens to most guys. Or so I hear.” Jason was circling him. “You’re sick,” he growled. “And you’re weak. I can smell it on you.”

“Jason,” he said, and he kept his eyes clear and steady on the younger alpha. “I won’t fight you.”

Jason raised his fist and struck. Struck so hard that Hal’s head cracked against the wall, and he moaned. Jason’s face was hovering over his. “Won’t. . . fight you,” Hal gasped. 

“Suit yourself, makes my job easier,” Jason said, and he struck him again, a powerful fist to his middle that knocked the air clean out of him. There were fingers gripping the back of his hair, hauling his head around for a better hit. Hal opened his swollen eyes, licked his cracked lips.

“You think. . . being an alpha. . .is about fighting? I thought Bruce taught you. . . better than that.”

“Did you miss the part where I’m not Bruce?” The next punch rolled him, and Jason was on top of him, twisting his arm back in a pin that would snap bone in about another fifteen seconds, and Jesus, the kid was freakishly strong. Not kid any more, and Hal was quickly learning that lesson.

“Won’t—fight—you,” he gasped. He could be like Bruce, he could be the kind of alpha Bruce was. The kind of alpha who fought with his brain, not his fists. The kind of alpha who knew there was more to being an alpha than what was in his high school biology textbook. He could do it. _Be like Bruce, be like Bruce,_ was pounding in his head, but it was a little hard to find his Zen Alpha mojo while getting the ever-living fuck beaten out of him, and had no one ever gotten this kid some anger management therapy? 

“Yeah okay, fuck that shit,” Hal said, and with a surge of will he had Jason pinned in a tight green vise in three seconds flat, face to the floor. “Stay down,” Hal panted, struggling up. Jason’s growl had become a roar of rage, interspersed with cursing that Hal truly and from the bottom of his heart admired, because that was some next-level Olympic-medal cursing. 

“Don’t ever fucking challenge me again,” he said, wiping blood off his mouth, and extended the construct to a gag – not too tight, but not all that comfortable, either. He could sever it once he was through that door, but get through that door he would. He made it down to the end of the hallway, and fell to his knees. He staggered up. The hall had just taken a serious lurch to the left, and he was having trouble standing. But on the other side of that door was Bruce. 

Two more steps to go. He placed his hand on the knob and pushed.


	11. Chapter 11

The bedroom was so dim he had trouble seeing anything at first. He took a second for his eyes to adjust, after the light of the hall, and he shut the door behind him. He released the construct holding Jason, because he knew that Jason wouldn’t follow him in here – wouldn’t dare, in fact. Not into his alpha’s lair, and say what he might about Bruce, it was clear that when the chips were down Bruce was his alpha. Jason had the Outlaws, and a pack of his own, and by rights shouldn’t have that kind of connection any more, but Hal was pretty sure the Bat-pack wrote its own rules. 

At first he thought Bruce wasn’t even here, but he knew that he was—he could feel it, deep in him. He had made it past Jason and through that door with the last of his strength, and he stumbled again as he tried to move forward. Caught himself on a chair, struggled up again. There. On the bed. Wrapped in a tangle of blankets. Bruce. Bruce. Bruce.

Somehow he made it to the side of the bed. “No no no, oh fuck no, baby no, no no no,” he murmured, over and over. Bruce’s eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. His skin was clammy, and he was shaking—chills, Hal knew. He no longer remembered warmth, himself. 

“Bruce, baby, I’m here, I’m so sorry, Bruce, wake up, wake up baby, fuck I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. His shaking fingers caressed Bruce’s hair, his skin. Bruce’s eyes fluttered open, but they were glassy, unseeing. What had he done to him? 

Physical contact was the problem, Bruce had said. Fine, he would give him as much physical contact as he could, he would give him the most physical contact possible. He tore at his clothes, practically ripping them off him, and climbed in the sweat-soaked sheets with Bruce. 

“Hey baby, it’s me, I’m here, it’s me,” he kept murmuring, just nonsense phrases to call him back from whatever place he had slipped into, because no, fuck no, this was not happening, Bruce was not leaving him now. Hal rained kisses on his forehead, his eyes, his nose, rubbed at his hair. No, more physical contact, he needed to give him more. He pushed and tugged at Bruce’s sodden clothes to get to skin, and pressed his own bare skin against Bruce’s.

He held Bruce’s head to his neck, so he could smell the sharp strong scent there—the scent of his mate. Was it his imagination, or was Bruce’s breath deepening, evening out? “I know what I did,” Hal whispered into his ear. “I know, I know now. Oh baby please wake up. I know what I did. I will never, never—never again—I swear to you, I won’t fail you again, just please, please—”

Bruce was shifting up against him. Pulling away to look at him, and his eyes were in focus now, they were keen and alive, they were Bruce’s eyes. A shaking finger was lifted to his face, brushed it. Hal shut his eyes at the unbearable sweetness of it, the sweetness flooding all his veins.

“Forgive me,” he husked. 

Bruce’s hand slid to the back of his head and pressed their foreheads together. Bruce was inhaling deeply, nostrils flared, inhaling like Hal remembered him doing that first time on the Javelin. Hal nudged closer and did the same. They rested like that for a long time, for an hour maybe, not saying anything more, and slowly Hal felt the shaking in Bruce’s limbs slow, then stop. Bruce’s hand rested on his face, and Hal echoed his gesture with a hand on Bruce’s face. He had thought there would be so much to say, but in fact there wasn’t. There wasn’t anything more to say, because they were saying it all. 

A slow drowsiness was growing on him—not the fevered torpor of before, but a delicious sleep. He fell asleep pressed against Bruce’s skin, with Bruce pressed against his, and he woke slowly. It was like waking up in a different body. He could get air all the way down to the bottom of his lungs, for one thing. But the main thing was the warmth. He felt warm from the top of his head right down to his toes—warm like he was floating in a bath, only the bath was made of sunlight. He burrowed closer to the sunlight, nuzzling at it, and it nuzzled back at him. 

He opened his eyes and found Bruce already awake, watching him. A small smile on his face. “Hey there,” Hal croaked. Bruce nudged at his mouth, and Hal opened up. He slid his tongue against Bruce’s, and nope, he had been wrong, he could in fact get warmer. And the taste – the taste was fucking indescribable. It was musky and sweet and dense and complicated and everything that was Bruce. He couldn’t get enough of it, couldn’t chase down enough with his tongue. Bruce’s tongue was after his too, and then they were basically just tongue-fucking. 

Hal pulled back and studied Bruce. “What’s the matter,” Bruce whispered, brushing a thumb across his cheek. 

Hal shook his head. “I’m good baby. I just. . . how are you feeling?”

“Better. Stronger.”

“Let’s not do that again, yeah?”

Bruce nuzzled at his neck. “Never,” he whispered. The nuzzle became a lick, and Hal moaned a little. And then his stomach gurgled. 

“Me too,” Bruce said, and crawled out of the bed, over top of Hal. Hal heard the door open and shut, and Bruce returned with a food tray. He raised a bleary head, expecting to be assaulted by a wave of nausea at the smell of food, but instead he felt. . . hungry. Actual hunger.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Well, it appears to be the contents of the entire kitchen,” Bruce said, setting the tray down on the bed. “Eight roast beef sandwiches, four beef tenderloins, and what looks like a duck confit in plum compote.” He picked up the knife and fork and cut a slice off the tenderloin. Hal’s mouth watered.

Bruce slid a hand behind Hal’s head, raising him up a bit. “Eat,” he said, feeding him the tenderloin slice. “You’re thin as a rail. Come on, eat up.”

Hal let his eyes slide shut as he chewed. “Oh my God,” he moaned. “Holy shit nothing has ever tasted this good.” 

He sat all the way up and snatched the knife and fork from Bruce, tucking into the tenderloin himself. Bruce watched with a smile, and picked up one of the sandwiches. They ate in ravenous silence broken only by Hal’s occasional moans. And then Hal took Bruce’s sandwich and held it for him to eat while he cradled his head, and Bruce was placing bits of loin in Hal’s mouth with his fingers, and yep, holy shit, hello completely stereotypical alpha mating behavior. But instead of an alpha feeding his omega, they were feeding each other, and it felt so right, so natural, so fucking normal.

And who really cared about anything or anyone else? Not him. Not any more. Pretty soon they were both tearing into the meat with their fingers and feeding each other, and it probably looked about as appetizing as a pack of hyenas on roadkill, but they were kissing in between bites, and Hal was dizzy with the pleasure of food and the taste of his mate. Then Bruce was brushing a finger on the side of his face, near his temple, frowning at something.

“What happened?” he asked. Bruce’s voice was almost entirely his own again, just a little weak around the edges. 

“Oh. Yeah. Had a little bit of a throwdown on my way here.”

“What? Were you fighting a subway platform?”

Hal laughed and took some more meat, and another kiss with it. “Just about. I’ll say this for your pack, they are protective as all fuck. Jason was guarding your bedroom door, and I had to get past him. It was not a problem.”

Bruce had stopped feeding him. His frown had become a scowl. “Jason challenged you?” 

“Like I said, babe, not a problem.”

“You’re hurt,” Bruce said, running his fingers over Hal’s face, through his hair. Hal could hear the rising hackles in Bruce’s voice, see his increased respiration.

“Hey,” Hal said, grabbing at his hand. “I’m fine, okay? Dial it back. I totally had it handled. I didn’t hurt him either, I swear. I even tried not to fight him at all, I did that whole ‘real alphas don’t fight’ thing.”

Bruce was staring at him. “You did what?”

“Yeah, I thought it might work. I think I was getting through to him, for a bit there.”

“My God. How are you still alive?”

“It was fine! It was actually going great, but then I ended up just using the ring on him. And then he—”

“When did I ever say that real alphas don’t fight?”

Hal wiped his fingers. “I don’t know, I thought it was implied?”

“Jordan, you idiot, I beat people into the ground on a more or less nightly basis. When the hell did you think I ever implied alphas don’t fight?” 

“Well I was extrapolating, excuse me! Maybe you should have been a little clearer.”

Bruce shut his eyes and lay back down. “God help me,” he said, but Hal noted that his respiration had slowed again, and his voice was relaxed. Hal nudged him.

“Come on, don’t stop eating. I can count all your ribs. Come on, beautiful, open up.” He dangled a bit of the duck smeared with the sauce, and Bruce took it, licking Hal’s fingers. He stopped to suck on one, and Hal nuzzled him, rubbed up against him. The suction on his finger made him think of suction on other things. They were still naked, and the heat off Bruce’s skin felt so good. The cold that had paralyzed him seemed so far away now.

Bruce had finished cleaning his fingers, and now they were kissing again. Bruce settled into a steady lick under his jaw, and Hal gasped at it.

“Thing is babe, I was just wondering, when you say you’re better. . . like, how better?”

Bruce paused. Moved his mouth up to Hal’s ear. “All better,” he whispered, and he shifted, moved so Hal could feel that heavy cock pushing against his leg, could feel the heat from it. 

“Thank Christ,” Hal moaned. “Because I need it bad.” His need had just hit him like a freight train, and there was no slow build to this arousal. It was a like a light switch flipping on in his body – a jolt of pure electricity, a tingling in all his veins. 

Hal rolled them so he had Bruce pinned and just started to grind. They were naked already anyway. And they had been away from each other for so long. But even considering all that, he was surprised how little warm-up they needed. Seemed like there should be a little more of an easing-into-it period, given how wrecked they both were, but nope, apparently not—Bruce was right there with him.

He pinned Bruce’s wrists down above his head (yeah, he knew exactly what got Bruce going) and just kept grinding down into that heavy hard alpha cock beneath him. “I’m gonna fucking come,” he whimpered, and just like the brakes had been off before, so here—he had no control, none at all, and his whole body was spasming and jerking as he came and came and came all over that super-heated cock pressed up against his. Bruce groaned loudly, and he felt the wet splash of Bruce’s cum, and that made him come even harder, and they were basically just groaning and thrashing and coming on each other like crazy people, but that was just one more thing not to give a shit about. There was so fucking much cum. Bruce growled and rolled them and got his mouth on Hal’s neck and bit, hard.

“Fuck yes,” Hal gasped, raking rough fingers in Bruce’s hair, gripping with all his strength. They rolled again and Hal heard something shattering—some lamp, maybe, or some table they had knocked over. Who the fuck cared. There was blood running down his neck, and he twisted Bruce’s neck, hard, and bit until he tasted that sweet heady acrid blood in his own mouth. His mate’s blood. He licked and swallowed and groaned as another wave of orgasm hit him. Bruce was getting a hand around their knots, and Hal sank into the feeling of it, went boneless and slack.

Bruce’s fingers were still weak though, and trembling a bit, so Hal covered their knots with his hand too, and now their knots were pressed tight together. They were knot to knot. The heat was enough to make Hal gasp at it. And it went on forever, was the thing. Normally, the sex part of sex took the longest, and the knot was a sweet afterglow—or, in the case of sex with Bruce, a short rocket-ride of intense pleasure. This was something different. His knot had never, never lasted this long before. He threw his head back and cried aloud at it. 

“Hal,” Bruce moaned, and it was the small tremble in his voice that undid Hal, to know Bruce was feeling it too, was right in it with him. 

“What’s—what’s happening,” Hal whispered in his ear.

“Don’t know. Fuck—don’t stop. Don’t—don’t stop.”

“Not gonna stop baby, never gonna stop, _ohhhh_ —fuck you feel so good.” They were just grunting and gasping into each other’s necks, shaking with how good it felt. Hal couldn’t have said whether it was twenty minutes until his knot drained, or an hour, but he was obliterated. There was falling sleep after sex, and then there was passing out, and he was pretty sure that what happened to them was the last thing, not the first. He woke to Bruce kissing and nuzzling at his jaw, and gentle fingers in his hair. 

“Fucking love you so much,” Hal murmured, and Bruce’s fingers in his hair became a mouth kissing him, nudging at him. 

“Sweetheart,” Bruce whispered, his voice turned inside out—as inside out as Hal’s chest, as his life, actually. 

After a minute or so, Hal began to notice he was still hard. And so was Bruce, for that matter. “Um,” Hal said.

“Yes, interesting,” Bruce said.

“That’s one word for it.” Hal shifted a little, because Bruce had fallen asleep more or less on top of him, and that shit was not at all comfortable. Alphas tended to wrap their mates when they slept, and that was nice, that was all very touching, but breathing was also nice. As he fought free and rolled over, he reached over for the tray and stuffed some more food in his mouth. Their tray was looking like the bones of a kill, and they had long since dispensed with utensils. 

Bruce was now trying to wrap himself on Hal’s back. “Here, eat a sandwich,” Hal said, shoving another one back at him. 

“Want you instead,” Bruce said, kissing up and down Hal’s back. He was pressing into Hal, who shoveled another fingerful of meat in his mouth, swallowed some water, and turned over. 

“Okay I’m ready, let’s go,” he said, and Bruce laughed, and Hal laughed too, and they were kissing, and Hal had that same dizzy feeling as before. 

Later, of course, he would do enough research to know that what was happening to them was a rut. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what that was. Alphas were in rut when their omega mates went into heat, and in a beautiful and complicated interplay of hormones, alphas responded to their omegas by giving them the extended sexual activity – and longer knot – that the omega required. It wasn’t that anything he had learned before was really wrong; it was more that it was half-true, because if this wasn’t a rut he didn’t know what was. They were responding to each other’s bodies. Also, no one had ever told him what coming while in a rut would feel like it—how it would blow the doors on every orgasm he had ever experienced, how he would cry out as he watched the cum and slick dribble out his knot-swollen cock, and beg for it to stop even as he was begging for it never, never to stop.

They couldn’t get enough, couldn’t touch each other enough. His veins felt on fire with it, and every time he came was more intense than the time before. It felt like it went on for days, and he knew for a fact it did – or at least, the food trays kept changing. He didn’t want to think about how Alfred knew exactly what food alphas in rut would need, but the slabs of increasingly undercooked meat that kept appearing on those trays only tasted better and better. They only took food from each other’s fingers, or licked out of each other’s mouths. And _love you love you love you_ was every breath they inhaled; Hal no longer knew if they were speaking it or if they had gone beyond needing words to communicate. 

They fucked for hours. Not all Hal’s memories of those days were clear. There were parts that were so sharp and clear that when he remembered them it felt like they were happening to him right then, no matter where he was, in later years. But then there were hours—days?— that were fuzzier, lost in a fog of hormones and need. But some memories he could see better than others.

“I want you to knot in me,” Hal said, and Bruce brushed at the hair on his forehead. 

“Not safe, sweetheart.”

“Yeah, I get that. But maybe right now, it is, right? I mean, if we were ever gonna be able to do it, this would be the time. Come on, you know we’re in rut, you know it’s possible. Give me your knot, I can take it.”

Bruce’s expression was wary, but Hal could see him wavering. He leaned in for the kill. “Please, baby,” he whispered. 

Bruce was so careful with him, easing him all the way. Licking and suckling until Hal was practically weeping for it. Hal relaxed, just tried to let himself drift, and let Bruce come first, let his own arousal build more slowly. Bruce gentled him into it. And then the thick nudge of that knot, increasing its pressure until he felt like he might explode with it. Bruce kept working his cock for him, just a slow steady massage, and the extra pressure felt so fucking good. 

“Come on, _yes_ ,” Hal hissed, riding that fist-like knot that swelled him, stretched him. “Fuck I need to come.”

“Shhh, not yet,” Bruce whispered. 

“Fuck I need it, baby, I—”

“Wait.” Hal needed to wait, needed to ride out the long minutes of Bruce’s knot while he was still this side of orgasm. But he wanted to come so bad. Bruce pinned his wrists down so he couldn’t touch himself. Hal gave himself over to the delicious pressure of it, almost too much, too much, right on the edge of it. He pushed back over that knot as much as he could, but he had no natural lubrication in there, and there wasn’t any room to maneuver. “Fuck,” he said, thrashing. “I need—need—”

And then Bruce’s hand, slowly rubbing on his knot, working him right _there_ , and he cried out and spilled, long ropes of cum as that incredible knot pushed more cum out of him, and more, and more. He wasn’t even aware of when Bruce’s knot slid out. He fell back against the pillows and tried to regain breath. When Bruce’s tongue found his knot he cried out again. 

“Fuck I can’t take it,” he whimpered. It felt too good, it was too much, it was never enough. Bruce’s tongue sucking at his knot was like nothing he had ever felt. The slick that spilled out of him got Bruce’s face soaking wet, ran all down Bruce’s chin and into his hair. Hal yanked him up to his mouth to taste more of him, to sink his teeth into his hair and face and skin. 

“Good?” Bruce whispered, and Hal just held him closer, tried not to shudder with the storm of emotion wracking him. Bruce held even tighter, and Hal could feel the same thing in him. That was what kept slinging around to catch him in the gut, was how he wasn’t alone in this, how everything he was feeling, Bruce was feeling too.

Eventually they showered, because there really was no word to describe the layers of cum and slick and sweat and blood and meat juice covering them. It smelled awesome. Hal didn’t want Bruce to step into the water. They just stood under that amazing shower head, wrapped around each other, letting the water flow over the both of them.

“I’m in love with your bathroom,” Hal said. 

“Yours whenever you want it,” Bruce said, and Hal said nothing to that, because it summoned up a time after this, a world beyond the magic circle of their rut. Did Bruce have some kind of expectation that Hal would be moving in with him here at the Manor? Hal unentwined himself and leaned against the tile, still holding Bruce’s hand.

“Did I fuck up,” he said, holding Bruce’s eyes. Bruce would know what he meant. Had he done wrong, to come here and establish their bond like this? Bruce had not been in any shape to refuse him. Bruce couldn’t have pushed him away even if he had wanted to. And now—now it was obvious what had happened. They were bonded now, mated. Any blood test Bruce ran would show the answer, he knew it. This was forever. This was not undoable. And he hadn’t really given Bruce the chance to choose it. He had chosen, for both of them, and he had assumed Bruce’s answer on instinct. But that didn’t mean his instinct had been right. 

Bruce took their joined hands and pressed them to his face. The water ran down his hair, his brows, their fingers laced together. His eyes met Hal’s, and rested there. Hal had his answer. 

“I don’t know what happens next,” Hal said. 

“Soap,” was what Bruce said. 

“You know what I mean.”

“I know. And I don’t know either. Is learning as we go such an impossible thing?”

Hal thought about that one. “I kind of thought you would know. You know about all sorts of gay stuff, why wouldn’t you know about this?”

“You really do think there’s an online degree in Gay, don’t you?”

“All I’m saying is, there fucking oughta be. Also, since when are you Mr. Live In The Moment?”

“What can I say, you inspire me. You never seem to know what the hell you’re doing, and somehow things always work out for you.”

“You know, I want to argue that point, but I really can’t. Come here.”

Shower kissing was even better, except by the end of it they kind of needed another shower, on account of fucking around in the shower. But fucking around on dry land was even better, and they fell back in the bed. Hal could feel his body stirring again, the insistent thrum of need. This time he was the one who got his knot into Bruce, and this was another big patch of memory fog, because the pleasure was so blinding that it was a good thing his only job was to come early, because that was about all he was capable of at this point. But feeling Bruce writhe underneath him, hearing Bruce moan at the indescribable feeling of a knot stretching him, filling him, that moment of sheer impossibility—his own pleasure was nothing to that.

“Hal,” he groaned. “Oh fuck, _Hal_ —”

“Yeah, that’s it, baby, ride it, that's what you do to me, can you feel that? That feel good for you?”

“You—talk—too much.”

Hal laughed into his neck, and bit him, and then Bruce was wrestling at him, trying to get at his neck, and they were rolling, clawing and biting and tearing, and oh please, please don’t come yet Bruce, his knot felt so good wedged in all that tight and hot. And he got it just, just right—at the exact moment he could start to feel the first hint that his knot was easing, he rubbed a finger right under Bruce’s glans, right at the spot to drive him wild, and Bruce’s beautiful body bent and spasmed, and he came just as Hal’s knot gave its final throb and spilled wet slick inside him. 

“So good so good so good,” Bruce rasped, and could he please just remember forever what Bruce’s voice sounded like when he was coming his fucking brains out.

“Nngh,” Hal grunted, getting one last delicious rub of his knot inside him, one last thrust that made Bruce’s breath stutter. 

He did what Bruce had done for him, which was slide out and get his mouth on Bruce’s knot as it was starting. Bruce’s knot lasted forever, and Hal just bathed him, just tongued him and sucked him and ate him. 

“Corn-dogging,” Hal pronounced, as they were lying there drenched in so much slick and cum that really, another shower was probably the way to go.

Bruce turned and looked at him. “What did you say?”

“Corn-dogging. That should be the name for that. You know, eating someone’s knot from the side that way. I hereby proclaim that the corn dog.”

Bruce’s eyes slipped shut again. “I regret everything.”

Hal laughed. “Well, you did say we get to make this up as we go along. I think I should get to come up with the sex names for things.” He picked up a corner of sheet and wiped at his hair. Most of Bruce’s slick had ended up in there. He looked around at the wreckage of the bed. It was a vast bed, but it was beginning to look suspiciously like a nest. It worried him a bit that he didn’t find it disgusting at all. “You know at some point, we should probably consider getting clean sheets,” he said.

“Mm.” Bruce’s eyes were still closed. “I can get Alfred to come clean in a bit, if you want.”

“What, like. . . in here?”

“Yes, in here, you idiot. How else is he going to clean?”

“Well excuse me for being a little embarrassed at Alfred seeing, you know, all of our. . . this.”

“He’s been bringing us food for three days, or had you not noticed that? Also, did you think the stack of clean towels on that table was brought by magical sex fairies while you slept?”

“If you told me this house had magical sex fairies I would completely and one-hundred-percent believe you. I mean, you’ve got a T Rex in your basement, who knows what the fuck else you’ve got hiding around here?”

Bruce propped on an elbow and studied him. “You should come see,” he said.

“What, like. . . right now?”

“Why not? I could give you a tour. Though clothes first would be a good idea.”

Hal was silent. The world waiting for them on the other side of that door started with Bruce’s pack, at least one of whom disliked him and at least one of whom had actively tried to kill him. Actually, conspired to kill him was more accurate, because he was pretty sure Jason had discussed it with Dick beforehand. He wished the two of them could stay in this room forever. “Think I’ll have to fight Jason again?” he asked.

“Almost definitely. I fight him two or three times a month.”

“I’m going to pretend that was just your dry wit.”

Bruce’s hand sought his, and they were facing each other now, hands clasped. He could start to feel the rut ebbing, the truth was. He knew Bruce could feel it too. It was not unpleasant. He could think a bit more clearly, and could breathe without feeling the pulse in his balls on every inhale. He wondered if a rut like this would never happen again, or if it would happen regularly. That was probably some of what Bruce had meant by figuring it out as they went along. And still there was that firm warm hand clasping his, grounding him. 

It felt good. It felt better than good. It felt normal. 

“I love you,” Bruce said. “And corn-dogging is not a thing.”

“Not yet it’s not,” Hal said, pulling his mate in tighter. The world could wait another few minutes at least.


	12. Chapter 12

“Hal,” Barry said, opening his apartment door in evident surprise. “Hey man, what’s up? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m great. Wouldn’t say no to a beer though.”

“Sure thing, hang on. Come on in. Good thing you asked about beer, because this is your lucky day. Come on and take a look at this. Iris’s cousin has opened a microbrewery, and has gifted us with an entire crate of artisanal beer, just look at this.” Barry dug the crate out from underneath the counter. He fished out a slender brown bottle, popped the cap and handed it proudly to Hal, who sniffed it suspiciously. 

“Why does it smell like that?”

“Oh! Yeah, the bottles are infused with tee tree oil. Supposed to enhance the olfactory experience. Go on, give it a try.”

Hal rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said. “I thought I should stop by and let you know I’m alive. I was a little not so alive, when you saw me last.”

“Yeah,” Barry said, frowning. “No kidding. Hal, no lie, you scared the shit out of me. And then I haven’t seen you for weeks, and you didn’t answer your cell, it’s like you dropped off the face of the earth. I haven’t known what the hell to think. Hal, seriously. Are you okay?”

Hal considered his shitty beer. “Yeah,” he said. “I am. Better than okay, actually. Probably the okayest I have ever been.”

“Aw man that is so good to hear. You look like it. You look. . . great, actually. Being sick agrees with you, I guess.”

“I got married,” Hal said, and Barry sprayed his weak-ass oil-infused manure beer all over the countertop. He started coughing.

“You _what_?” he choked out, and Hal grinned, because this was even more fun than he had thought it was going to be. 

“I got married,” he said. “Or at least, you know. Bonded. As married as we’re probably gonna get.”

“Hal,” Barry said, wiping his mouth. “I don’t believe—I’m sorry, I’m just in shock. What I’m trying to say is, that is fucking awesome. Congratulations, man. I never thought I’d see the day. Like, literally. Are you guys gonna have a ceremony and everything? Please tell me I get to throw little packets of birdseed at you.”

“No, we’re not—wait, packets of birdseed? Why would you throw birdseed at me?”

“Because that’s what people do, after a wedding. Haven’t you ever been to a wedding?”

“I thought people threw rice.”

“Oh.” Barry nodded sagely. “Yeah, they used to, but rice is actually really bad for birds, as it turns out. Birds were picking up the rice pellets and eating them, and they’d get stuck in their throats and kill them, or they would swell in their abdomens. It’s actually pretty tragic. So, come on, you have to have a wedding! I would do you proud, man, I could deliver an awesome best man speech. Unless—I mean, you might want Ollie to. . . I didn’t mean to assume that—”

“Bar. Of course you’re my best man. It’s just, there’s not gonna be a wedding. There can’t be. It’s illegal, actually.”

Barry went quiet. Hal drank more execrable beer, and kept his eyes on Barry. Hard not to watch everything on that handsome, open face. “Illegal,” Barry said. “You mean. . . because he’s an alpha.”

“Yeah,” Hal said. “That’s right.”

Barry was staring at him. Hal set down his beer. “Wait a minute,” he said, “why did you say ‘he?’”

“Because that’s what you said. That day on the Watchtower when Dinah—you said you had slept with another male alpha. And so I guess I sort of leaped to conclusions, and I thought—am I wrong? Is it. . . is it that guy?”

“Yeah,” Hal said, “it’s that guy.”

“Holy shit,” Barry said. Two quiet men staring at their beers. And what had he really expected, coming here? Had he thought Barry would somehow be different? He hadn’t expected approval, exactly. He knew no one was going to throw him a party. But he hadn’t quite been prepared for this stunned and strained silence, this—

“Wow,” Barry said, and his face had broken into a grin. “Congratulations, man. Seriously. This is the best news I’ve had all day.”

“It. . .is?”

“Hell yeah it is. Are you kidding me? Hal Jordan, all mated and settled down? What’s next, the Earth crashes into Pluto? So come on, sit down and tell me the whole thing, start to finish. I want to hear it all.”

“You do,” Hal said. He was having a bit of trouble processing this. 

“Of course I do! So who else knows?”

“Ah. . . that’s not gonna be a very long list. So far, it’s. . . it’s just you.”

“Wait. . . really? Oh man, that’s even better. Okay, so tell me about him. What’s he like?”

“Uhhh. . .” Maybe he should have prepared for this line of questioning a little better, as in, at all. But in his head he hadn’t really thought beyond the coming out part, and he hadn’t thought he would be sitting down talking to Barry about, well, about Bruce.

“Well,” Hal said, casting about. “He’s, ah, he’s. . . a very special. . . ah. . . shit, I have no idea how to describe him. Kind of new territory for me here. Okay, he’s, well, he’s tall.”

Barry raised his eyebrows. “Tall.”

“And he has. . . dark hair.”

“Hal. Are you making this whole thing up?”

“What? No! I swear this is for real, all right, I’m just—bad at this part. He’s, okay, he’s a good man. Like, maybe the best I’ve ever known. That kind of good man.”

“Okay,” Barry said, encouragingly. 

“And. . . and he’s given his whole life to helping people. Literally his whole life.”

“So he gets the whole Green Lantern thing?”

“Oh totally. Beyond gets it. In fact he—well, his line of work isn’t all that different. I mean, much less heroic, obviously. But he gets what it is that we do. And he’s a pilot, too, so that’s something we have in common. And he. . .” Hal trailed off, seeing Bruce in front of him. 

“He’s not like anyone else you will ever meet. He’s so fucking brilliant, I can’t even tell you. But all he wants to do with his brilliance is help people. Even though he’s not actually that great at people, the truth is. I mean, you could be around him and never know what he’s actually like. Lots of people think they know him, but they don’t, not really. He’s kind of a mystery that way.”

Barry laughed out loud. “Tall, dark and mysterious with people issues? Don’t look now, Hal, I think you just married Batman.”

“What? No I didn’t!”

Barry was looking at him oddly. “Harold,” he said.

“No, I just—I don’t know why you would say that, is all. Because we weren’t even talking about Batman. Who I don’t even like.”

“Oh my God,” Barry was saying softly. “You married Bruce.”

“No!” Hal yelled. He clutched at his hair. “No, I didn’t. My guy’s name is. . . Alan. His name is Alan.”

“That’s my last name. You just said that because you’re staring at me.”

“Ah, see, no, but it’s spelled differently. He spells his name A-L-A-N. It’s completely different from your name.”

“Harold Jordan, you are the worst and most pathetic liar in the entire known multiverse. There are literal third-graders who are embarrassed for you right now.”

Hal put his head in his hands. “Fuck,” he said weakly. 

“You married Bruce,” Barry said. “Holy hell. How did I not. . . how did I not see this coming? Because oh my God. _Oh_ my God. Hal. It makes. . . good God, it makes so much sense. It makes so much sense I am terrified at myself right now, is how much sense it’s making.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. That’s why—it was _him_ you were talking about. He’s been. . . wow. Just wow. Hal, I can’t even—okay, sorry, I’m gonna start saying actual sentences soon, I promise.”

“Barry. I did not come here to do this. I came here to talk about me, and to be honest with my best friend about _me_ , not to out him. You have to understand that.”

“Hal. You think you can’t trust me? You think I would ever, ever say or do anything that would put the two of you in any situation where. . .” He started smiling. “The two of you. Man, that is so weird to say. And. . . nice.”

“It is?”

“Hal. You know how I feel about you. But I’ve always loved Bruce, and yeah, it’s really gotten to me over the years that the two of you have always been at each other, that you’ve never been fair to him, that he’s never seen the best of you. And now you two have—oh man, this is just the best thing ever.”

Barry was grinning at him. Actually grinning. Like a face-splitting, ear-to-ear grin. The best thing ever, Barry had just said. Hal’s face was solemn. “You don’t know what it means to hear someone say that,” he said.

Barry reached over and grabbed his arm, squeezed it. “Come to dinner,” he said.

“What?”

“Yeah, come on, you and Bruce. Look, I know you can’t have a wedding. I know this is something no one else will ever even know about, maybe. But there’s no reason the two of you can’t come over for dinner one night, and let me and Iris cook for you, and make you a stupid cake and drink champagne and just, you know, be happy for you guys. Please let me do that. Please.”

Hal wanted to say something, but couldn’t. “I. . . let me talk to Bruce first. Telling people is not something we’ve really talked about yet. And he—” His phone binged at him. “Hang on, sorry, gotta take this. You wanna stop blowing up my phone?” he said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Well keep all your underwear on GL, I wasn’t even calling about that,” Jason drawled. “Dickiebird just wanted in on these provenance scans we’re running. Told him you had helped me run down alien origin for those drugs last week, and he has some stuff he wants the ring to take a look at. Thought I’d check with you.”

“Aw what am I, the price check scanner at the Target?” Hal sighed. His irritation was for show, and Jason knew it. He was secretly pleased that Dick was interested in joining their little provenance project. And it hadn’t escaped him that Jason called him first to make sure it was okay. They had never talked about what had happened in the hallway that day, but that didn’t mean Jason had forgotten the lesson.

“Friends and family discount,” Jason said, and Hal laughed, not because it was funny, but because he knew which of those he was, and Jason knew it too. 

“Ok kid, see ya soon,” Hal said, ringing off. Barry was watching him with a smile. “Just family stuff,” Hal said lightly, and Barry clapped another hand on his shoulder, then pulled him into a tight hug. 

“Okay, we’re hugging now? Barry, I got married, not diagnosed with a fatal illness. It’s fine, I don’t—okay,” he sighed, giving into the hug. Barry’s hugs were not easily shrugged off, and it was usually best not to fight them. And then he realized that Barry was going to hug Bruce, and Hal was going to get to watch that, and that was going to be worth the whole price of admission to this dinner party. 

“Okay,” Hal said. “That’s—okay, we’re still hugging, okay. Just checking in, how long are we hugging for?”

“Clear your schedule,” Barry said, muffled into his shoulder, and Hal laughed, shot through with pure happiness.

* * *

Bruce stood outside the antiseptic looking door, his hand on the knob. Easy enough to walk back to the parking garage and get in his car and drive away. No one would ever know he had been here. And perhaps today was not the day, after all. 

He knocked sharply, and entered the office. Dinah looked up in surprise from behind her desk. “Bruce,” she said. She didn’t look displeased. “Is everything all right? Were you trying to reach me? Apparently I kept my phone on do not disturb for about five days after that conference I went to earlier this month, so God knows I—”

“No,” he said. “I hadn’t tried to call. Do you have a minute?”

“Of course,” she said. She was hiding her puzzlement with the skill of a born therapist, gesturing him to a comfortable chair. He chose to stand instead, and walked to the window, taking in her view. 

“Your office is smaller than I thought it would be,” he said.

“Well, I guess I. . . don’t always have the time to maintain the kind of practice that might get me a larger office.”

“I would imagine not.” He noted the slow roll of concrete mixers in the parking lot opposite. A wretched view. “I won’t take up more of your time than I have to,” he said. “I came at the end of the day because I thought I would be less inconvenient now than otherwise, but I’m aware your time is as valuable as mine, and I promise not to keep you from your dinner.”

“Bruce. Please, stay as long as you’d like. Oliver is cooking tonight, I’m sure the take-out can wait. You sure you don’t want to sit?”

“I’m sure. I need to ask you a question.”

“Okay. Sure.”

“How far do you trust me?”

It had not been the question she was expecting, clearly. Her puzzlement was only deepening. “Bruce. I can’t believe you think you need to ask that question.”

“It’s not pointless, I promise. How far do you trust me?”

“With my life,” she said. “With the life of everyone dear to me. It’s possible I trust you more than anyone I know.”

He nodded. “I need you to trust me more than that.”

“More than—” She was frowning. 

“I need you to trust me more than you trust yourself. That’s the kind of trust I’m talking about. The sort of trust you feel when everything in you is telling you one thing, and I am telling you another. Could you trust me even then? Against all available evidence? Might you at least try, if I told you it was important?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, I would.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Because that’s what I’m going to ask of you. I’m going to tell you something that will be difficult for you to hear, and that will very likely change the way you think about me.”

“Bruce, nothing could do that.”

“You think that now. But it’s not that simple. What I am about to tell you will leave you with only two options. You can either trust me completely, and rearrange everything you think you know about the world. Or, you can choose to disbelieve everything I am about to tell you, and rearrange everything you think you know about me.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

“You’re following,” he said. “But no one wants to be faced with those kinds of choices.” He turned back to the window and the concrete mixer. Yesterday’s conversation was still in his head. Had never left his head, the truth was. Probably wouldn’t, for the rest of his life, though he had said nothing at the time.

“That was a ridiculous risk,” he had said, scowling at Hal. He had been sitting in the breakfast room with his morning coffee, and Hal had been leaning against a chair, munching a meditative apple. Why could the man never just sit in a chair? He always had to be leaning on it, or draped sideways, or straddling it like an undermedicated middle schooler.

“No it wasn’t,” Hal said, examining his apple.

“Why on earth would you tell Barry something like that? You do nothing but place him in an uncomfortable position. You got lucky, that his reaction was what it was. I need you not to stand on the ramparts of Wayne Manor waving the rainbow flag like it’s the second act of Les Mis, if you don’t mind.”

“Right,” Hal had said. “Because there’s no point to that.”

“There isn’t,” he said acidly, flipping through headlines on his tablet. 

“Because it doesn’t have anything to do with reality, and it’s just a waste of time trying to persuade people. Because you have better things to do with your time.”

“Exactly,” Bruce said, though perimeter alerts were sounding. In every argument with Hal, there came a point where the ground shifted treacherously under his feet. Hearing his own excellent reasoning echoed back at him made him nervous.

“I see. So here’s what, Mr. I Ain’t Got Time For That Shit. Before, when somebody spouted off that homophobic shit, you could tell yourself it didn’t matter, because you could ignore it, it didn’t matter to you, no basis in reality blah blah blah.”

Bruce said nothing. “News flash, in case this hadn’t occurred to you yet,” Hal said. “Every steaming plate of bullshit you get served up, from Dinah or whoever else? They’re not talking about you any more. They’re talking about your marriage. They’re talking about us.”

Hal had leaned in. “And guess what, Genius Boy? You’ve got time for that.” 

He had aimed his apple at the trash on his way out the door, and Bruce had continued to sit there. Was still sitting there when Alfred came back in to freshen his coffee. “Anything I can do for you today, sir?” Alfred said solicitously. 

“You probably agree with him,” Bruce said.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir. Agree with whom?”

“Oh never mind,” he had said, tossing his napkin at the table. “I’ll be at the office today.”

He told himself he was ignoring Hal’s ridiculous assertions. They were groundless. Irrational. Overly emotional. And somehow. . . impossible to forget. Not unlike the man himself. So here he stood in Dinah’s office, some twenty-four hours later. 

“No one wants those kinds of choices,” he repeated. “And yet those are the choices you’re going to be faced with, in deciding whether to trust yourself, or me. Because the thing you don’t know about me, is that I’m gay.”

The room had gone very still. Dinah herself had not moved at all, and her face was unreadable. Well. One more evidence of her skill as a therapist. “Please don’t say anything,” Bruce said. “Believe me, I would rather you not. Just listen, for a little bit. We can talk about this later on, if you’d like, or we can talk about it never, if you’d prefer. The important thing for today is that you listen.”

He turned back to the window. “You believe some things that are untrue,” he continued. “Things about me and others like me. I would imagine you believe them for good reason – because, as you said, of the people who sit in this office and tell you these things. But I’m asking you to believe that for every troubled, self-hating alpha queer who finds their way to this office, there are a hundred more out there whom you never see, who live lives of quiet happiness, with mates and families and bonds that are every bit as real, and as true, as your own. That, finally, is the thing I’m asking you to believe. I’m not asking you to believe just in me. I’m not interested in being the exception to the rule you have in your mind. I’m telling you that I am one of many, many thousands exactly like me. I’m telling you that there is a world outside this office, of whose existence you have not the smallest idea – a world where queer men and women, alpha queer men and women, live and love and mate and go to work and buy homes and raise children and pay their bills, where caste has no bearing on who we are, or who we love.”

 _They’re talking about us,_ Hal had said. That had been what he hadn’t seen. Easy enough to shrug it off when it was just aimed at him, all that talk. But at his mate? For Hal he would stand alone, one man if he had to, and thrust a spear right up the belly of the world. There would be no more hiding.

He glanced at her, still sitting there white-faced and unmoving. Her eyes hadn’t left him. “That’s what I’m asking,” he said softly. “Your choice. Think about it. Give it some time.”

He headed to the door, but paused, and turned back. “I’m one of those people,” he said. “I forgot to say that. I have a mate now. As you probably know, you see things differently when that happens. When you’re ready, when and if that’s something you feel you might be able to do, I’d like to invite you to my house. Our house. That’s all I was going to say.”

His hand was back on the knob when she spoke. “Bruce,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I. . .” She licked her lips. “Thank you for coming here today. Thank you for. . . telling me this. For thinking it was worth it, to have this conversation with me.”

“Time was, I wouldn’t have,” he said. “For that, I apologize.”

“I do too,” she said. 

“Well,” he said. “It’s a place to start.” 

The ghost of a smile twitched her mouth. “That it is.”

He walked out, closing the door quietly behind him. He walked briskly to his car in the garage across the street and sat there for some time, thinking. After a while he hit the number he told himself he wasn’t going to. Not out of any compulsion or need; that had long since faded. Not as quickly as it probably would have, had they not attempted like idiots to break their bond in the middle of its formation. That had caused physical and emotional disruption they were only now sorting through, and for long weeks after they had not found it bearable to be out of each other’s physical presence. And then, they had started small – an afternoon away, perhaps, only to fall back into each other’s arms after a few hours had elapsed, shaking and hungry and needing. Bit by bit, they had re-discovered independent existence. Hal could even go off-world now, with relatively little trouble. It would get better. And as the compulsion faded, he found it replaced by something calmer – something stronger and deeper and truer.

“Hey,” said Hal’s voice, and Bruce shut his eyes, let the warmth wash over him. Possibly it wasn’t fading all that quickly; possibly he would feel that rush of heat at the sound of his mate forever, that small adjustment of his entire body to the exact timbre of Hal’s voice.

“Where are you?” Bruce asked.

“Monitor duty on the Watchtower. Just finishing up. Then I’ve got reports to file for the Corps, which I might be just a small bit behind on.”

“Define small.”

“Seven weeks, if I had to ballpark it? I’m sure it’s fine. The Corps’ deadline is like the IRS deadline, you know? Not really a thing.”

“Jordan. The IRS deadline is really a thing.”

“Well, they ain’t come after me yet. Besides, how would you know about the IRS? It’s not like you pay taxes.”

“What? Why would you think I don’t pay taxes?”

“I dunno, I thought rich people didn’t.” He could hear Hal stretching himself out. His long legs would be propped on the monitor console, like Bruce had yelled at people a thousand times about not doing. He could hear the creak of his chair. “Things have been pretty slow up here. How’s tricks down there?”

“Interesting. I just came from seeing Dinah.”

“Oh yeah? What about?” He could almost swear he could hear the man chewing sunflower seeds. Food. In the monitor room. Did he explain the rules just to hear himself talk, sometimes? Did no one pay attention to basic regulations?

“I thought about what you said,” Bruce said abruptly. “And you were right.”

There was a sound of sifting through a plastic crinkle bag of some sort. “See,” Hal said, over more crunching noises. “That could mean anything from, I’ve changed my entire way of thinking about God and the universe, to I’ve conceded you were right about which way the toilet paper goes. Remember how we talked about this? Sometimes you have to use your out-loud voice to tell other people what’s going on in your head, babe.”

Bruce gave a quiet laugh. “I’ll tell you about it when you get home tonight,” he said. “Are you?”

“Yeah, I should be. Might be kinda late though.”

“That’s too bad,” Bruce said. 

Hal’s voice was lower, softer. “You need me home sooner, baby?”

“Yes,” he breathed. “Is that all right?”

“It’s always all right,” Hal murmured, and they just breathed like that a few minutes, because sometimes just breathing each other’s air, even if it was over the phone, would work too. 

“See you soon,” Bruce said.

“Just so you know, this is how I end up seven weeks behind on my reports. In case you were thinking about chewing my ass out for being irresponsible any time soon.”

“Actually, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about doing. All night long.”

“Get off this line, what kind of unprofessional behavior is this? The Watchtower’s communications line is not your personal porn chat, Wayne. I’ll see you around eightish?”

“Sounds good. And Hal?”

“Hm?”

“Pay your damn taxes.” 

The last thing he heard was Hal’s laugh, loud and long and deep, the laugh like sunlight, the laugh that always made everything in Bruce’s insides relax, like a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. He slipped the phone in his jacket pocket and cranked the Lotus’s engine. He could make it till eight.


End file.
